Under a Lucky Star
by izzyred
Summary: Drawn by a mysterious force, Riku's friend Sora takes on astrology as something of a hobby and opens up a world he didn't expect. Riku doggedly follows along for the sake of love, and soon finds his healthy skepticism straining against the evidence as things grow stranger and stranger around him. A story about love, divination, teenage confusion, and what the stars can tell us.
1. Temptation

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title:** Temptation by New order

**Izzy would like you to note:** I looked into a lot of the stuff I write about in this story pretty extensively, but I'm going to play around with it a lot and change things. Like, for instance, I did actually assign birthdates/places/times to the main characters and then got their natal charts and related information, but the whole premise here will be things growing steadily more chaotic, and I don't really care about being 100% accurate about it because it's supposed to be fun. Along the same lines, I looked up the movement of the planets in relation to the different houses and signs for all of the years covered in this story, but then I realized it's really not important to be accurate on that either. Anyways, hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Temptation**

Summertime, 1993. Just past noon.

Riku, for some reason, found himself sitting in a loose circle of his friends in Sora's basement. His ass hurt. It was blindingly hot. And his throat felt like he'd swallowed sandpaper and washed it down with actual sand. He sighed and thought of Leon's pool party, something he'd previously had no desire to attend, but was now looking more than appealing.

He took a moment to look around at the other attendees and grimaced pointedly. Selphie was never a companion he'd suffer by choice, yet there she was, taking up an unreasonable amount of space and sighing dramatically.

"What is taking that brat so long?" she said, the affected high-pitched whine of her voice grating on every single nerve in Riku's body.

He grimaced again.

"I'm sure he's digging through the heaps of clothes on his floor as we speak," Kairi replied, fanning herself. "It'll take him at least a year to find anything he's looking for in that room."

Tidus stood up. "I'm leaving then."

Zexion and Demyx nodded and started to join him when a sharp bang echoed through the basement, the clatter of footsteps quickly following.

"Hold on!"

The cry came from the stairs on which Sora now stood. The brunet brandished a book Riku had become all too familiar with, grinning and descending quickly. 'Here we go,' he thought, shaking his head. 'Now everyone is going to find out what a lovesick little stooge I really am for going along with this madness.'

Despite his weary thoughts, Riku smiled at his friend and watched as he came forward to join the circle.

"Alright," Sora called, settling in next to Riku "birthdays everyone!" He slammed the book down and pressed his finger against a page that read 'Aries' in large, flowing letters, a beaming smile on his face.

Everyone aside from Riku stared at him for a moment, then took the time to glance down at the book he'd brought. They hadn't been made aware of the purpose of this little powwow, so it probably came as some shock that Sora wanted to play astrologer in the middle of a heatwave. Still, considering the alternative activities available in their one-horse desert town, it's not like they had anything better to do. A collective, unspoken agreement ran through the group, and soon everyone was trying to remember their sign.

Sora cut in to clarify. "To determine your moon, rising, and midheaven signs I need detailed information about birthplaces, birth times, and birthdates. If you know all of that."

Sora grinned and turned towards Riku, his eyes glimmering with excitement. Riku was happy that he was enjoying himself and all, but he couldn't help wondering if they should be doing this. He knew what it might cost their friends. And as innocuous as it seemed, there would be blame passed around when things got crazy.

In spite of Riku's misgivings, and with no clue about what they were getting themselves into, everyone started giving Sora their information. Kairi was the only one who knew everything down to the time of birth, so Sora did her reading first.

"Kairi, your sun sign is Aquarius. Makes sense."

"That'd better be a good thing, Sora," she said playfully, shoving him with her foot.

He laughed and continued. "Moon in Capricorn, Scorpio ascendant and Leo MC. Your signs are all over the place."

She stared at him, uncomprehending, then finally asked, "Alright, so what does any of that have to do with anything?" She crossed her arms and waited.

"I was just about to tell you that." With a twinkle in his eyes, he began reading about the meaning of each of the signs, flipping through the book with a practiced familiarity.

Riku made a face at the whole thing, his concern growing as he thought about the things that had been happening to them — the crazy things he couldn't explain — since the first time they'd opened that book. He shuddered and glanced at Kairi, wondering what her horoscope would be when Sora was done.

"I see," the brunet murmured, startling Riku from his reverie. "Venus is in Capricorn until next month, which is a good thing for you since that aligns with your birth chart."

Suddenly, everyone in the circle was riveted. Even Tidus who would normally be ready to flee merely at the mention of anything that involved a book, was rapt with attention. They began clamoring for their own readings as Kairi's went on, wrestling over who got to use the phone to call their parents for their birth certificates.

'They're getting a little bit too worked up,' Riku thought, glancing at Sora with a frown. The brunet responded with a playful wink.

"I think they're getting into it," he chuckled, nudging Riku. "Maybe we should bring out the book you got today."

Riku gulped at the thought. He still couldn't be completely sure it was true, but he felt like opening the hulking old astrology book in front of Sora had been the beginning of all the strange events around them. He didn't even want to imagine what opening a book called _Librum Dæmoniorum _would unleash on them. On the world.

Still, he couldn't deny how curious he was, or how strongly the book called out to him. And he knew his fears wouldn't stop him if he really wanted to pop the lock on that whole new treasure chest of pseudoscientific knowledge.

Instead of delving into that in front of their friends, he ignored it for the time being and helped Sora draw out out everyone's horoscopes and natal charts. It took them hours, during which everyone else demanded constant updates on what Sora was finding in the book. He patiently told them everything they wanted to know, which surprised everyone except Riku. They all knew that, normally, the brunet would become overwhelmed under that kind of pressure and get snippy. But, as Riku had come to understand over the past two weeks, Sora had a strange affinity for astrology, and a strange harmony with the book in front of him. It made him calm; almost sage-like. It freaked Riku out even more than the fact that all of the horoscopes Sora divined were true. And more than the strangely specific events the two of them had experienced over the course of two weeks.

He thought back on the night everything had started and wondered if the same things he'd experienced were in store for his friends.

* * *

Dial everything back to May.

Sora and Riku were lazing around after a day of goofing off. It was the start of summer vacation and they had been up to their usual activities: skateboarding in empty car parks and dry lake beds, joyriding out on rural desert roads, cramming cheap tacos in their mouths until they were full to bursting, etc. It wasn't exactly inspired, or even all that fun, but there were only so many things to do in the middle of nowhere.

After a long day of this nothingness, they lay winding down on Sora's bed, yammering about bullshit as the minutes ticked by. It was horribly uneventful, and somewhat torturous for Riku. His head was always filled with things it shouldn't be when he was around Sora, and it was only made that much worse when he lay close and defenseless, completely unaware that he was being watched.

During one of the lulls in conversation that often came about when Riku became too wrapped up in his thoughts, Sora sat up slightly and gave the other boy a serious look, pointing at him with narrowed eyes.

"Riku, do you believe in astrology?"

The silver-haired boy had no response to that, at first. The question was completely out of place, and he was tired and irritable from spending all day thinking self-absorbed, lovelorn thoughts. After a small pause, he shrugged.

Sora frowned, but flipped around energetically anyways, sitting up all the way and digging around at the edge of his bed. An unreasonable amount of time passed as he dug through the debris that constantly littered his floor before the brunet turned to him and, with an unwarranted twinkle in his eyes, produced an impressively unimpressive book the size of his own torso.

"Well, anyways, I found this the other day," he said proudly, sliding his hand over the cover. "It looks interesting."

Riku looked from the book to Sora to the book again, sighing and shaking his head. He read the cover: _Astrologia_

"Don't tell me you believe in this shit because of that book, Sora?"

"Pfft, no," the brunet chuckled, waving one hand in the air. "That's not the point."

"Well what is the point then?"

Sora shrugged. "I dunno. We're not doing anything else anyways. I'm bored."

"And this will alleviate your boredom how? You can't read for more than 10 seconds without getting frustrated and throwing a fit."

Sora kicked him lightly, setting the book in his lap with a petulant pout.

"Come on, what does it matter? If I open it and it's boring I'll chuck it. But I might just discover the secrets to the universe inside of this big ol' hunk of paper."

The brunet wiggled his fingers like a corny magician, moving his hands towards Riku's face. The silveret grabbed them before he got his eye poked out and sat up next to his friend with a sigh.

"Alright, let's see what you got here," he grumbled, flicking open the cover with one finger.

And that's when they both became entranced. It was almost like all of their skepticism and derision were forcefully suspended, held in the thrall of some power trapped inside the pages of that book. They sat for hours determining their personality traits and inner workings, as though they'd never known themselves or each other before. In their fervor and mesmerization, everything felt so real and frighteningly accurate they started to wonder about using the book to determine their horoscopes. After all, if so much about who they were could be determined by the pages of _Astrologia_, the future couldn't be that far out of reach. It seemed reasonable at the time.

Later, after they'd thoroughly mapped out the events of the days, then weeks, then months ahead, they sat down and closed the book and wondered what the hell had happened.

Sora stared at Riku, who in turn sat gaping back, a slight frown forming on his lips.

"Well that was weird," the brunet murmured, scratching the side of his head. "I feel like I've lost some hours."

"Yeah that's- me too. What the hell? What a stupid waste of an evening." Riku sighed and stood up, stretching back. He felt dizzy for a moment as he arched and had to catch himself on Sora's bed. He and the brunet stared at each other again, a tremor of fear and confusion running between them.

"It's- it must be the heat," Riku reasoned, his head swimming. He touched his forehead and squinted, trying not to collapse. Sora reached towards him in concern but he was already stumbling away, looking around at the dozens of pages of notebook paper they'd scribbled on over the past four hours. He couldn't remember anything they'd written. None of it was recognizable, and he could barely see what was happening around him anyways. His eyes were getting blurry.

Sora seemed to be reacting in much the same manner, though he hadn't stood yet and simply sat closing and opening his eyes and squeezing his head.

Then everything went completely blank.

They woke up on the floor, still surrounded by the pages that seemed to chronicle their lives and their inner selves so accurately. And the pages that held their futures, too, those were crushed under cheek. Riku had to peel the top page off and give it another glance just to get his eyes to focus.

"It says that I'm going to receive bad news today," he grumbled, glancing over at Sora, who was reading a page they'd written about Leo ascendant.

"I can't remember doing this," the brunet replied, shaking his head and dropping the page. "I mean, I remember us doing it, but I don't remember the words. I don't remember what the book said. I don't remember any of this shit."

Riku grunted in concurrence, dropping his page as well and glancing over at the one they'd written on Sora.

"Yours says you should spend all day inside since an accident is waiting for you outside," he said, scanning just the first line. "This is just ridiculous."

Sora nodded and stood up with a sigh, shaking his limbs around to get the blood flowing. "You must be right about the heat getting to us," he laughed. But Riku heard the tremble in his voice. Sora was feeling just as unsettled as he was.

But there was no way he could bring Sora down; he didn't want to discourage or upset the brunet, so he had to pretend everything was okay.

"Yeah, I think we just need some proper rest and water or something," he said gently, joining his friend and patting his shoulder. "I'm heading home. I'm sure my mom's not too happy about me staying at yours without asking."

Sora nodded in his periphery. Riku couldn't bring himself to turn and look at his expression as he left.

* * *

Fast forward a few days.

Riku was utterly disturbed. He'd gone home from Sora's three days before with only a small knot of doubt in his chest. Nothing too drastic. But, in the span of time since, he'd become a paranoid mess. It had started with the news of his grandmother's death. That's what he'd come home to after the horoscope fiasco. He had a brief flash of what he'd written on that paper when his mother told him.

"You will receive bad news."

He shook it off at first, chalking it up to coincidence.

Then he received another bit of bad news: Sora had been rushed to the hospital with a head injury. He had a concussion from being hit by a baseball as he was riding his bike past the park. That seemed a little bit more freaky to Riku, so he visited his friend during his brief hospital stay to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Sora, though mostly recovered, was still somewhat concussion-y, and mostly garbled and laughed at silly things when talking to Riku. However, he did have one salient thing to say. He grabbed Riku's wrist as he was leaving and said, "I read that tomorrow I'm going to receive some money. And you're going to struggle with an important decision. Just keep that in mind."

Riku nodded and gulped, not sure how to feel. He tried to calm himself with the help of the more analytical parts of his brain which told him that these things could not possibly be accurate. That astrology was just a budding craze brought back after lying dormant for many centuries. That belief in new age bullshit was only so widespread because people were gullible and willing to trust the primitive parts of their brain. 'Yeah, this is all just nonsense,' he reasoned, slightly reassured. 'This was just a fluke. We're both messed up in the head from this heatwave, I'm sure.'

The next day however, his reassurance seemed to mean nothing. He heard that Sora had received an apology check from the people at the park. And then he was faced with the decision of whether or not he wanted to go to his grandmother's funeral. A difficult choice to make because he knew there would be people there he couldn't see without dredging up painful memories. He didn't like to think about what they'd done to him, let alone look them in the face, so he ended up telling his mother he needed to stay home. But what irked him more than the resurfacing of his past family trauma was the accuracy of his fucking horoscope.

"This is shit," he later told Sora, winding the cord of his phone around one finger nervously. "This is genuinely shit. What is happening here? Did we bring this on or did we figure out that it was going to happen using that book? I'm scared here, Sora."

"Yeah me too," the brunet said around a mouthful of chips. "I mean, looking at all this stuff we wrote, if it comes true we're a little bit fucked."

"Why?" Riku sat up in his bed, heart pounding out of his chest. "What else does it say?"

"Well, most of it is innocuous, at least," Sora responded slowly. "It just seems like a lot of weird, impossible things honestly. Like, the first two days were tame as hell compared to this, and I think we can both agree that getting crowned by a baseball while on a moving bike is pretty damn weird."

Riku sighed and rubbed his neck, thinking about that for a moment.

"Let's just erase it," he said. "Then they won't come true, I bet. Weird, impossible shit has never happened to us before so I posit that we caused it to happen by writing it down, or by sussing it out at all. So, getting rid of the source should make it all go away, right?"

"Mmmm, I dunno, Riku. I think it might be too late for that."

"Why do you say that?"

"I just think we opened the floodgates and there's no going back," Sora murmured, a crumpling sound coming from his end. "I don't know how I know that, but I'm pretty damn certain man. It's like something in the back of my head is literally buzzing and I'm getting these feelings. I feel like I know what all of this is about. Like I know that there's nothing we can do to stop what's coming."

"Great, so we opened Pandora's box," Riku sighed, knocking the phone receiver against his forehead in frustration. "What a great way to start the break."

Sora laughed. Riku could hear him turning the pages of a book and got the feeling he knew exactly what book it was.

"Sora are you looking at that-"

"This thing is pretty interesting man," the brunet interrupted. "I mean, I get why I was so drawn to it now. It was really hard reading it the first time, but ever since then I feel really good when I'm reading it. Really clear."

Riku just gaped at the wall, fish-mouthing into the open space in front of him.

"How can you possibly reopen that thing after what's been happening to us!? What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me, Riku. If anything, I'm better than I've ever been before. I feel so calm. And focused. This book is better than Ritalin."

"I'm hanging up."

"Riku-"

"I'm hanging up, Sora."

He dropped his phone with finality and rolled over on his bed, unable to shake the creeping feeling in his spine.

And over the next few weeks leading up to the astrological circle jerk in Sora's basement, all manner of freaky shit happened.

Sora went downstairs one morning to find all of his family's shoes on the dining room table, lined up from oldest to youngest.

Riku saw all of the pictures on the wall alongside his staircase drop one-by-one, following his pace as he descended hurriedly.

The two of them, while conducting research in _Astrologia_ about what was happening, experienced a gust of wind that blew Riku's window open and flipped them to a page labeled "Your Sign and Death" - after which they decided to have an extended sleepover at Riku's.

Then it was just curiouser and curiouser each day. Swarms of bees that suddenly dropped dead all at once, sounds that only they heard like drums beating at night, small meteors falling to earth all around the house but causing no damage, and so on. It became so commonplace for the not-so-commonplace to occur around them, in fact, that they were almost inured to it. Riku was becoming cynical and apathetic, petulantly finding a reason for everything, even when no logical explanation was easily at hand. And Sora just ignored it, refusing to speak of the things happening even when they were happening right in front of him.

Riku stopped trying to bring it up, watching instead as his friend became more and more absorbed in _Astrologia_, and in divining the future from it. He was scary-accurate, and even though Riku could use and understand the book just fine, it never worked the same way for him as it did for Sora. On top of that, his zenned out attitude had become more persistent. Even when he wasn't using the book, he was much calmer than Riku had ever seen him in the 17 years they'd known each other. Not to say that he was suddenly the master of tranquility — he was still Sora after all. He just seemed to have a lot more control of himself. And there had always been something very unbridled about Sora in the past, but that was fading a bit with each day.

After awhile, they both decided that weird was the new normal and Sora went back home, adjusting to his role as the somewhat psychic wonder. And while weird shit continued to happen right up until the day Sora convened his friends in his basement, it no longer seemed to matter. Neither of them had been hurt since Sora's brush with the baseball after all, so it was almost like living a completely normal life.

That's how Riku felt, anyways. He wasn't sure about Sora, but it looked like he felt the same to him as the brunet finished up Zexion's horoscope. Riku scooted away from the circle after passing out the horoscopes that had been dictated to him and watched his friends scanning the pages hungrily. He wondered if they were being taken by the same strange fervor he and Sora had experienced the night they'd opened the book. He would only know after Sora closed the thing again since that's when they'd been hit by the side-effects. He waited for the brunet to end it, but he never did. He was still poring over it, his eyes locked on the words with an almost fanatic enthusiasm.

That was concerning. He crawled forward again and placed his hand gently on the pages, trying to get Sora to look at him. The brunet did lift his head, but only to frown at him, eyes slightly unfocused.

"I think you should close it now," he murmured, reaching for the front cover. "Draw yourself back."

They stared at each other for a moment longer. Riku was unsure if any of his words had reached the other boy, but there was something like understanding creeping into his features. He thought maybe it would be safe enough to make the move himself. He wanted to see what would happen to everyone else anyways, even if it made him feel a bit guilty. 'Well they seem like willing guinea pigs,' he justified to himself, slamming _Astrologia _closed and glancing around.

The reaction he got was even more intense than he'd expected.

It started with Kairi, who dropped her paper with a dazed look, her body slumping in its position on the floor. Her arms suddenly hung limp at her sides, head lolling to one shoulder as her eyes fluttered closed. Soon, everyone else was in much the same predicament, their bodies half-way suspended, yet without a doubt unconscious.

Sora and Riku looked at each other, and then the rest of them.

"That's not good," Sora breathed, still sitting cross-legged on the floor. He looked up at Riku and pressed his lips together.

Riku sighed and sat down next to him.

"Nope," he said, "that's not good at all."

* * *

**End Notes:** I really don't believe in anything in this story even remotely but it's really fun to write about. I had a friend who was really into astrology before and it seemed like something that would make a good story topic. I'm going to keep this going in a sort of wild way. I haven't made any plans, to be honest, I just know the general idea, so let's see how I do. Bye!


	2. I Can't Help Myself

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title:** I Can't Help Myself by The Four Tops

* * *

**I Can't Help Myself**

The story of how Sora had come across _Astrologia_ was a fairly boring one overall, but it warranted telling if only because this small series of events became the catalyst for so much of what was to follow.

He'd gone into town on his own on the last day of school, miffed that his friends hadn't waited for him until after his meeting with the principal. It didn't help that he'd been told he wouldn't be able to conduct summer practices for the swim team on campus since their coach would be away until the following term. Never one to take a bad mood lying down, he decided to find a distraction at the frozen custard stand and take his chances on some summer blockbuster. He knew the latter would likely be a mistake. Regardless, he skidded up to the front door of Colonel Custard — a name meant to be a play on Colonel Mustard, but which unfortunately evoked images of Colonel Custer instead — and ordered a deluxe sundae inside. That did wonders for his mood, so, feeling sufficiently assuaged, he remounted his bike with all of the intentions in the world of riding home and calling Riku.

That is clearly not what happened.

As soon as he was back on the sidewalk in front of Colonel Custard, he was overwhelmed by what he could only describe as a "terrible urge" to go towards one of the new places that had been opened in the same row of shops. Rather than fighting it, he went along like a dog on a leash, finding a place marked only by an unknown symbol and with pitch black windows. And since the unpleasant compulsion he'd felt, nameless shop, and completely blacked out windows were clearly not ominous enough, Sora stepped inside without a second thought, eyes bouncing over everything inside with unbridled curiosity.

"Hello, welcome."

The greeting came from a decidedly average voice, whose owner emerged from behind a curtain of beads leading into a room that seemed to have nothing inside but blue light. Literally, it looked like a wall of pure light, with only more light beyond. And a sourceless, contained light, at that. Despite this and the wholly creepy nature of the entire store, the owner was as decidedly average as his voice, with shaggy brown hair that hung in his eyes, an impressive, close-shorn beard-mustache combo, and a friendly smile. He looked out of place amongst all of the shadows; everything aside from him was cast completely in the dark with purple lights shining away towards the ceiling rather than at the contents of the shelves. It made it appear as though the place itself were simply a shadow, and if you touched the walls, perhaps it would all wisp away from your fingers.

But Sora felt comfortable in spite of all of this. He wasn't even worried about what was on the shelves aside from one thing, and it stuck out in his periphery before he could take much time to squint at everything else. He went towards it with unnatural tenacity as the shop owner looked on and smiled. What he found in the shadows was an enormous, leather-bound book, its cover worn with time. The word _Astrologia_ was imprinted on the front in pretty cursive letters, shining bright in Sora's eyes though he could not explain why. The dim lighting certainly wasn't illuminating anything.

He didn't have the presence of mind to consider it much further, so he brought the book to the counter without a second glance and slid it towards the owner, smiling back at the man with inexplicable reverence.

"I will take this, please," he said, stroking the cover.

The man nodded and made no reply, pulling the book away to slide it inside a paper bag under the counter. The paper bag only had that same strange symbol from outside the shop on it, but that concerned neither Sora, nor the owner it seemed. He handed the parcel back to Sora and bade him go home, and that was it. There was no payment exchanged, no further interaction, and no explanation. It was just done.

Sora had told Riku this the day before inviting everyone over to his house, and he wondered about that store and its mysterious owner and/or manager. Or whatever that person or entity or apparition was.

"I don't understand why no one else has said anything about this place," Riku said, shuffling through the following day's horoscope disinterestedly. 'Raining minuscule tree frogs, don't step on them. Awesome.' He tossed the papers in his hands behind him, flopping onto his side on the floor. Sora's record player was spinning _Nevermind_, and it was freaking him out. He kept hearing things that stuck out just enough to make him feel like there was some relation to the weirdness that was unfolding around them.

'I don't remember these lyrics,' he thought, frowning at the record player and looking up at Sora. The brunet was absorbed in reading the horoscopes he'd just written, but seemed to take note of the strange things coming out of the record player too. He stood up to flip it to B-side but nothing changed, it continued to play the correct songs, just with altered lyrics. They were still in Kurt Cobain's voice, they were still right on key, but they were definitely not correct. Sora and Riku had sung themselves hoarse to the record enough times to know that.

Feeling rattled, Riku took the needle off and switched to a random record lying nearby, which just so happened to be Marvin Gaye's _What's Going On_. He didn't know enough of the lyrics to tell if they were as messed up as _Nevermind_, but he could tell by Sora's expression that this one wasn't working quite right either.

He decided to settle on silence as background noise and joined the brunet on his bed.

"So what do we do here?" he asked (not for the first time). "Are we just going to let this go without investigation?"

Sora shook his head, dropping his papers on top of _Astrologia_. "I think you should go into the shop," he said, his expression entirely serious. Riku wasn't sure if he'd hit his head.

"Are you kidding me, here? Go into the shop that sold- no, _gave_ this book to you?" He gestured at _Astrologia_. "This book which made us both faint, has pumped you full of zen juice, and has basically caused you to foretell a bunch of impossible shit that is coming true with superlative accuracy. Oh, and to top it all off, it's a store full of shadows with no name and magical lights coming from nowhere. Yeah, that seems like a safe place to go."

"Oh yeah, I wonder if those were portals or something," Sora said, touching his chin.

"I'm trying to have a conversation here, Sora!"

"Look, I know, okay. I get why you would be hesitant."

Riku frowned. He was feeling a little bit more than just "hesitant."

"But look at it this way: I'm totally fine. We're both safe and sound and we've done no harm to anyone else. I mean, yeah things are a little weirder for us now, but we haven't died or anything. And weren't you the one who said we should investigate just a moment ago?"

The silver-haired boy gave a small nod after a moment, not sure if he was on board with all of Sora's points. Still, he couldn't help but feel curious about what might be inside that store for him if, in fact, anything was there for him at all. It seemed like it had drawn Sora in based on the fact that _Astrologia_ was waiting there for him and then presented the book to him as though that was the only thing he should (or _could_) have in the store.

He sighed and gave in despite his misgivings, deciding with Sora that they'd both venture to Colonel Custard on the following day to see if Riku could find anything out about Symbol (as they'd taken to calling the mysterious shop).

And at 8 in the morning, they did just that, popping in for some custard at a time when almost no one ever did. It raised a question: why was a frozen custard store open at 8 in the morning? It didn't seem to concern anyone. 'Maybe this town was already a gateway for the mundanely weird and that's why all of these things are happening,' Riku thought, half-laughing at his own internal dialogue. Life was getting pretty ridiculous.

But almost anything was on the table when you'd seen a flock of birds poop the word "DREAD" onto the hood of your mom's 1991 Honda Accord.

Dismissing the ramblings of his very nearly unhinged mind, Riku refocused on the task at hand, ordering two scoops with no intention of actually eating them. He was on a mission. A mission he'd become so concerned with, in fact, that he hadn't even noticed that he knew the guy working the counter at Colonel Custard that morning.

"Is he alright?" Zexion asked, gesturing at Riku with the scoop in his hand. "He looks like he's been drained of all sentience."

Sora looked up at his silvery friend. "Couldn't tell ya. I think he's constipated or something."

Riku pressed his lips together, scowling at Sora who knew damn well that wasn't why he was so focused. "You do realize we're here for a reason, right?"

"Yeah, okay captain serious."

"I wonder how you're not more well-known for your wit," Riku said, rolling his eyes.

Zexion snickered and handed them their cups, following them to their table since no one else was around and no one else was likely to be ridiculous or quirky enough to eat frozen custard for breakfast.

"So what's this mysterious reason Riku's all geared up for?" he asked.

"We're trying to figure out what's up with that new place a few stores down," Sora said, spooning custard into his mouth at an alarming rate.

Riku stared at him in horror for a second, then slowly looked to Zexion, who was making more of an expression than usual at Sora's gluttony. He turned his raised eyebrow towards Riku and shrugged.

"Why are you looking into that place?" the slate-haired boy asked, looking bored as he leaned against one of the nearby tables. "It's just some old lady store full of knick-knacks from what I hear. My mom goes there to buy ceramic figures."

Riku and Sora exchanged a look before turning back to Zexion, not sure if they could risk sounding as completely insane as they might if they told the guy about what had been going on.

Instead of revealing all as Sora was wont to do, Riku quickly covered with some lie about the store owner being an ex-con selling drugs in salt and pepper shakers to buyers in-the-know.

"I don't see how it's your business to investigate something that dangerous, but whatever alleviates your summer tedium, I suppose."

With that, Sora and Riku were left alone to quietly discuss the store more in depth, Zexion's interest in interacting completely vanquished and replaced with his usual aloof detachment.

"I'm not feeling anything yet," Riku murmured, glancing towards the wall that Colonel Custard shared with the two shops before Symbol. "I mean, I wonder if it will just be the old lady knick-knack store for me."

"Maybe," Sora replied, swirling his spoon around in an empty cup. "But I didn't feel anything until I left here either, so we'll just have to wait until you step outside."

Riku stood and started to walk out, wondering if it mattered that they were together. Sora had been alone after all.

"Hey wait!" Sora called, interrupting his thoughts. He raised Riku's still-full cup of custard with pleading eyes. "Can I eat this?"

"Yeah, go for it."

He left his brunet friend inside Colonel Custard and ventured out into the scorching weather alone, ready to investigate. It was only 8:20, but heat was already rising from the pavement, wavering in the sunlight. Riku squinted and walked further away from the door he'd just exited, wondering when/if the feeling would hit him.

And then he wondered no more. It crept up on him in a great wave of longing, filling his body with purpose and potent desire. He was slightly horrified, but also a little bit elated. He wanted to understand what was happening to Sora, and maybe some part of him liked the idea of being special too. Anyways, he was just relieved that their trip hadn't been for naught as it had been a hot and uncomfortable one made no better by the tiny rain of frogs they'd encountered just at the edge of the shopping center.

Riku ignored their croaking and followed the feeling snaking its way through him to Symbol, noting that it looked exactly as Sora had said. This was also encouraging and frightening, but he continued forward without thinking much about it, even more focused than before. He could feel whatever was in store for him calling out so strongly it almost hurt. It was like a chain yanking at his heart, pulling him inside of the eerie place and to his destiny. Or whatever.

Unlike in Sora's experience, no one emerged once Riku was inside, but this was perhaps because of how quickly he found what was calling to him. Just as it was for Sora, it was a book, though much smaller and newer-looking than _Astrologia_.

The black leather cover was almost impossibly dark, much like the shadowed shelves around him. It was one of the softest things he'd ever touched, perhaps because it was well-taken care of, or perhaps because it was made from something unearthly. Either way, it was beautiful and enchanting to Riku, as was the title: _Librum Dæmoniorum. _It looked as though the letters had been etched by liquid silver, still shining and just barely raised off of the leather. He traced his fingers across it and breathed out slowly between his lips, not sure what to do with himself. He felt the maddening urge to open it and pore over the pages, but he wasn't sure what might happen if he did.

"Would you like to have that, sir?"

Riku snapped his gaze towards the voice now addressing him, its owner appearing from the door of blue light just as Sora had said. The way he emerged from within definitely made it look like a portal, but Riku had never seen a portal before and really couldn't speak on the issue. He noted that the door adjacent to the possible portal looked very much the same, though with pink light rather than blue inside. He wondered if that was something different from Sora's experience, or if the brunet had simply forgotten to mention it. In any case, everything else was the same, so far. The interior, the purple lights, the blackened windows, and even the owner, who was now smiling and watching Riku from behind his bangs.

Warring with his extreme feelings towards the buttery soft book in his hands, the silver-haired boy moved closer to the counter, hoping he could ask some questions of the owner.

"I… would like to have this," he choked out, shocked, at first, that his questions would not come out. Then he wondered why anything surprised him anymore, especially after everything in the store had been true to his friend's account.

With some effort, Riku kept himself from reaching the front — though his feet seemed desperate to get him there — and started to grasp for some questions.

He found it almost impossible to keep his thoughts straight as he looked at the man behind the counter, his mind zipping from one topic to another then back to the book in his hands. Always, his focus returned to that book, and he knew, somewhere inside, that he was stroking it pretty fervently. Which was a bit weird.

"What is this place?" he managed finally, straining at the ringing in his ears.

The shop owner seemed to appraise him with a bit more curiosity at that, his head quirking to one side. He dropped the smile.

"It's a place for people like you."

Riku tried to ask what he meant, but was cut off by the man's raised hand.

"I can't give you any answers," he said, though his voice was surprisingly kind. "I can tell you only that my name is Jeff, and I'm here for the same reason as you: this is a place for me. And this is the place I am drawn to when I'm needed."

Before he could open his mouth again, Riku was compelled forward at the behest of his legs and, undoubtedly, the book in his hands. He put it on the counter without a word and it was slipped inside a bag with a symbol on it. That seemed to snap him out of his zombie-state just a little, but he still felt a yearning unlike any other for what was inside of that bag. So although he wished to stop himself and question this man with the disappointingly unimpressive name further, he couldn't contain the force that was compelling him any longer. It was as though it had doubled in strength after he'd controlled it the first time, and it was forcing him out onto the sidewalk at a speed unsuitable for the inside of a shop.

He found himself spit out and half-stumbling under the summer sun, his bag clutched tight to his chest and a whirlwind of thoughts in his head. He turned around as soon as he could manage it and took a look at the shopfront. It was completely different. Now it was called Chachi's Tchotchkes, which made him wonder why all of the stores in town had such awful names.

"Riku!" Sora called, waving at him from the front of Colonel Custard. "I see you found what you were looking for inside Chachi's Tchotchkes."

The silver-haired boy rolled his eyes and walked towards his friend, still staring at the place where Symbol used to be.

"You didn't mention the pink door," he said as he approached the brunet, handing him what he'd gotten.

"Oh, I forgot about that," Sora said with a shrug, opening the bag. He let out a low whistle when he saw the contents. "Yours is pretty."

"I think you might have been right about those doors being portals," Riku said, snatching his precious back. "The way Jeff came out of it was like- I dunno. I wish I could have investigated more."

"Jeff? Seriously?"

"Yeah, and he told me pretty much nothing, which means we're back at square one."

"I wouldn't say that," Sora said with a grin, poking the book Riku was clutching onto. "I have something resembling a plan."

Riku didn't like the sound of that.

As it turned out, the brunet had invited Zexion to his house later that day, and wanted to call up some of their other friends to use as test subjects as well.

"I don't like the sound of this," Riku said, voicing his concerns.

"Yeah I could already see that on your face when I first mentioned it," Sora responded, rolling his eyes. "It's fine. Look, we need to see how the book effects other people. It's for science!"

"Since when have you ever cared about science?" Riku scoffed.

"Since all this crazy shit started happening, I guess." The brunet looked a little upset, which really drove Riku crazy. So he ended up apologizing and giving in to Sora. Probably only because of hormones and his crotch.

And this is how he ended up surrounded by a semi-circle of unconscious friends, unable to do anything but wait out the effects of what he'd been partially responsible for.

'Curse my crotch,' he thought, glancing at Sora again and wondering if a hug would be too far out of the ordinary. The brunet looked back at him and he felt guilty right away. There were more pressing matters at hand.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" Sora asked, his eyes sweeping the group again. "None of them are moving."

"They're breathing though, right?" Riku said. "I mean, they'll be okay, Sor, just give it a moment. Remember, we both passed out too."

Sora turned to him with an expression that said 'whoops,' and scratched at the back of his head, chewing his bottom lip.

Riku, while thinking it was quite cute and lovable, had the presence of mind to at least be concerned by what his expression meant. "What is it?"

"Uhh, I think we're going to have to call their parents." Sora cast his eyes to the ground. "I'm pretty sure they'll be asleep for the rest of the night."

The silver-haired boy realized what he'd missed then, and knew that Sora was right. They'd both slept all night after opening _Astrologia_, and it had been impossible to wake them, according to Sora's mother.

"Great," Riku grumbled, sighing and leaning back against the wall. "Gimme the phone, I guess. Let the fun begin."


	3. Sacrilege

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title:** Sacrilege by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

* * *

**Sacrilege**

"Thank god it's finally over," Riku sighed, falling to his side on the floor.

He'd gone through the scant phone book of their little burg for nearly an hour trying to find the phone numbers of his friends' homes. A surprisingly difficult task since he wasn't one hundred percent sure of all of their last names. It was half guess-work and half luck, in the end, but it worked out.

Really the more difficult task _should_ have been coming up with a reason that was both believable and reassuring for the parents. But as each phone call came and went, Riku started to realize that something was a little bit off about the adults in town. At least the ones he was contacting, anyway.

It wasn't just them though, it was Sora's parents, too. His mom had come down a few minutes after Riku had picked up the phone book and set down two glasses of lemonade without pause. Sora had become frantic, rattling off the beginnings of an explanation for the circumstances, but her only reaction to the situation was a slight hitch of her skirt as she stepped over Kairi. She'd even laughed and patted Sora on the head, moving back up the stairs without so much as a glance back. Sora had bolted after her with a pained expression, but Riku had been too busy to check on him and had continued thumbing through the phone book instead.

It stood to reason that whatever they'd unleashed by using _Astrologia_ was having an affect not only on those directly involved, but also on their families. That thought was scary as hell.

'How far could it go?' Riku wondered, his eyes widening. 'What if distant relatives in other towns suddenly become surrounded by road Kraken or overrun by venomous rabbits and think nothing of it? What if it's so contagious that the whole world is suddenly plagued with _Twilight Zone_ type events and the adults all act like it's nothing?'

Riku shook his head. He couldn't start going down that train of thought. It would only lead to frustration and feelings of inadequacy. Instead he focused on what he could examine close at hand. So far, he knew with a fair amount of certainty that the adult family members of those exposed to _Astrologia_ were affected with a complete nonchalance towards the strange things happening around them. He suspected his own parents must be different too, judging from the evidence, but he hadn't noticed the change if there was one. It was disconcerting to think that he might go home and find his father milling about in front of a burning altar as if it were completely mundane. Or his mother flipping through endless looping channels of the same disturbing program with a contented smile. Of course, he was sure those specific things wouldn't happen; he'd already extinguished the burning altar and disposed of it properly, and the channels had rectified themselves after a day. But still, he was gripped with the overwhelming feeling that events like these would soon come to pass. He shuddered.

Now that he thought about it, not once had his mother or father brought up any of the events suddenly popping up in their town. Even more surprising, there were no rumors of strange things going on amongst the populace. There was not even a murmur of disquiet.

Riku felt like he might go mad if he thought about any of that too hard, so he sat up and tried to occupy his mind. And maybe it was the act of sitting up that flipped the switch once more, but as soon as he was upright he was inundated by the desire to open the book — his book. The one that he knew contained the path to his destiny.

He reached for it, unthinking. There was nothing more pleasant than the feeling of that soft leather under his fingertips. It was almost as if it melted right into his skin. He wondered if it might stain him with its inky blackness, not sure how such a deep color was possible. It was otherworldly. Breathtaking. He wanted to open it. Whatever was inside had to be 10 times — no — 100 times more beautiful, 100 times more captivating than its exterior.

Riku slid his fingers over the spine, not even sure at what moment in time he'd taken it completely in his hands, but not really concerned with it anyways. He just wanted to touch it and see what was inside. Nothing else was important.

"Riku!"

He snapped his head up, and found himself face-to-face with Sora. Too shocked to move or appreciate the closeness of his friend, he began to process what must have happened.

"How long have you been calling me?" he murmured.

"I said your name at least 10 times. I even shook you," the brunet said flippantly. "You seem just as into your new purchase as I am into mine."

Riku didn't say anything, just stared down at the book still clasped in his hands. He put it aside, wondering how Sora was coping with his desires so well. The brunet had become absorbed in his book, to be sure, but Riku knew that between the two of them, Sora was the impulsive, hedonistic one. There was no way he would ever stop burying himself in the pages of _Astrologia_ if the feelings were as strong as the ones Riku got when he held _Librum Dæmoniorum_.

He turned to his friend with a twinge in his chest, feeling uncertain about everything all over again. Not that the sensation that impending doom was watching them from all sides ever truly subsided, it just surged up with renewed vigor sometimes. This happened to be one of those times.

"I'm going to have an existential crisis soon," Riku grumbled, flopping back onto his side.

"I don't see what your existence has to do with anything," Sora scoffed back, nudging him with one socked foot. "But anyways, since we're already in a bit of a mess here, why don't you just pop that thing open. The title alone is tantalizing. I want to know what's inside."

Riku remained as he was — contemplating the vastness of the ever-expanding universe. Wondering if his actions were even worth their cost when life was such a meaningless void full of a constantly growing number of unexplainable phenomena.

"I don't want to open it," he said, wriggling himself closer to the other people laying on the floor. "I'll just become comatose instead. How about that?"

"Oh my god, Riku, what is up with you?" Sora said, sitting on Riku's side as he continued to wriggle.

"You've hindered my progress," Riku grumbled, taking advantage of the closeness of his friend anyways. He was certainly appreciative since it was rare indeed for a person's crush to sit right on top of them. It was almost enough to rouse him from his slug-state on the floor. Almost.

"You're looking at things through your mopey pessimist lens as usual," Sora sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's time for you to stand up and take this for what it is: the call of destiny. The start of a new era! All ushered in by us! How exciting is that?"

"But we're mere mortals," Riku said, turning and sitting up a bit. He was face-to-face with Sora again, which was nice. Also, the brunet wasn't budging from his position straddling Riku's hips, so things really couldn't get any better for a teenage boy in love. But then it got a little tricky. Sora wasn't exactly sitting all still and stoic, and his face was getting red at an alarming rate, too. It made Riku curious, and hopeful. Plus, it was so hot. They were both sweating, emitting heat, breathing hard. And they were so close. All of this was making a messy sex-drive stew, and Riku was slurping it up. 'I'll have to coach myself through this,' he thought, fighting the urge to touch Sora's hip. 'Please don't pop a boner please don't pop a boner please don't pop a boner.'

"Tha- that's not important, Riku," Sora mumbled, cutting through the internal chanting. "We should use what we've received. Why else would these things have been given to us?"

"They could be- I dunno. Maybe it's a trick by some being trying to mess with the Earth." Riku licked his lips. He wanted to groan when Sora mirrored the action. 'Stop doing that,' he thought, resuming his chanting once more.

"But Riku-" and there he was, doing stupid cute things again. He licked his lips again, and the way he was leaning forward… 'Don't put your hands on my chest, stop.' Riku tried to direct his gaze over Sora's shoulder but all he saw was the brunet's ass sticking out. The way he was arching his back _had_ to be on purpose goddammit. "-we won't know unless we go for it."

"G-go for what?" Riku stammered, losing track of the conversation topic as he fought a very real internal war for self-control. "I mean, yes. You're right. We'd better go for it."

Sora paused in confusion, giving Riku a moment to collect himself. He stared at the brunet and gulped, trying not to find his knitted brow cute. 'Why is he still sitting on me? What kind of straight boy does this? Just dismount already!' But it was too late. His undoing came as the word mount entered his thought-sphere. All he had to do was accidentally picture Sora mounting him in a different sense and there it was. His crotch soon displayed its crown jewel, just swelling with pride. 'Oh shit,' Riku thought desperately, 'my ulterior motives are showing.'

Before he could think of another solution, he shoved Sora off, sending him to join the rest of his friends on the floor.

"Gotta pee!" he said a little too loudly, bolting up the stairs. He stowed away in the bathroom the minute he'd reached the landing, hoping the stupid thing would go down on its own. 'I am so not jerking off in my best friend's downstairs bathroom. His family uses this… ah! Family. That's a good way to go.' He spent the next few seconds bombarding himself with images of his recently dead grandmother, and before he knew it the accursed boner was vanquished, allowing him to head back downstairs to make up an explanation for Sora.

He found his friend sitting cross-legged on the floor, rubbing his head in confusion or pain. He wasn't sure which.

"Uh, sorry," Riku said, helping him stand. "I drank too much lemonade."

Sora didn't seem too bothered either way, which was a relief. However, it did plop them right back into the spot they'd left off in their argument. An argument which Riku felt himself losing.

"You already said you agreed," Sora pointed out, unaware that the battle had been won through sex appeal.

"No, you're right, I said that, but I didn't mean it. I was confused."

"Yeah right, asshole, you're just trying to backtrack."

"Sora, you can't blame me for having a few reservations about popping open a book that literally has the Latin word for 'demons' in its title."

"Oh," the brunet said, grinning, "so that's what it means?"

"Please tell me that's a joke." Riku stared, his eyes full of incredulity. "What else could dæmoniorum mean?"

Sora pouted. "Maybe I just didn't think about it much, okay? Don't give me so much shit all the time."

"Okay, I'm gonna breeze right past that and tell you again that I don't think it's a good idea to use these things. And it's not even just because the word 'demons' is in the title of mine. There's also the fact that messing with yours has knocked out a total of 7 people including you and me. Plus, whatever feelings are drawing me to the book I got are even stronger, and that definitely spells disaster."

"Hold up. How exactly would you know that the feelings drawing you in are stronger? You have no idea how strong mine are."

"I'm basing it on how often you use the book," Riku said, hoping Sora wouldn't get all competitive on him.

"Okay, but you have no way of testing it sooooooo."

'Here we go,' Riku thought, nearly rolling his eyes.

"Alright, let me just put it this way," he sighed, "if I was as willing to use _Librum Dæmoniorum _as you, I would have opened it the minute I received it. And I can guarantee I wouldn't have put it down for anything. Not even you."

Sora stared at him for a moment, looking like he didn't believe that. He seemed to decide not to fight that battle any longer, and shrugged, patting Riku on the shoulder. "It's a good thing you're not as whimsical as me."

Riku laughed. "I don't know if I'd call it whimsical so much as reckless."

"Whatever, let's move past it," Sora said, grinning. "The more important topic is me convincing you to open that super cool demon book."

"You're not giving up on this are you."

"Nope."

After about half an hour of sitting in the basement debating while surrounded by a semi-circle of their unconscious peers, Sora and Riku started to find it creepy that there were a bunch of half-dead people around them and headed upstairs, still bantering on their way.

"Look, let's say I do open it," Riku said, sitting at the foot of Sora's bed, "what if I unleash demon-related stuff on the town? How could that be good under any sort of circumstances?"

"You don't even know anything about real demons, so how can you say it would be bad for sure?"

"While it's true that I don't know what real life demons are all about, I highly doubt it's anything good since all of the lore about them says 'demon equals bad' in no uncertain terms."

"But you don't _know_ that," Sora grumbled. "And I still posit that there was a good reason for us receiving these things."

"But that's the thing Sora, what if it wasn't fate? What if it was simply chance? Or worse, sabotage?" Riku closed his eyes and stretched his neck, tired of arguing. "I mean, ultimately the crux of all of your arguments is 'how do you know unless you try,' and uncertainty is not a basis for experimentation when so much is at stake."

"Ugh! You're such a wet blanket sometimes," the brunet whined, sitting next to Riku with a sigh. "If you won't open it how are we supposed to know what the future holds?"

"There's still a future even if I don't open it Sor," Riku chuckled. "Probably a much more happy and demon-free future."

There was a momentary lull as Sora leaned against him and sighed again, evoking more emotions in his friend than he could have known. Riku made sure he didn't do anything weird out of reflex, focusing on that rather than the sensation of Sora's cheek on his bare shoulder.

"Hey, Riku?" the brunet murmured, breaking the silence.

"What is i-? God dammit, Sora!"

The brunet, while looking proud as a peacock, sat holding _Librum Dæmoniorum _open to page one, thrusting it towards Riku's face.

"YESSSSS!" he cried, pushing it closer. "Can't you hear it calling for you!?"

The answer was yes, he could. Riku was already lost, and there was nothing left but the book. The first page was just as beautiful as he'd expected. He touched its vellumy surface with a shudder and pulled the book from Sora's hands, pushing the brunet's face away with a detached shove. He vaguely registered the sound of his friend protesting about it at his side, but he was too far gone to really listen, focusing instead on flipping slowly to the next page.

It was all in Latin, but that didn't matter. Riku knew exactly what it said. He couldn't say why, and if asked to read the exact words aloud he'd have no clue what to say, but he could distinctly make out the meaning of every single sentence. And it was enthralling.

Before he knew it, he was chattering away about the first topic: classification of demons.

"It says here that there are dozens of different classifications, but this one here is based on birth month. Look, yours is Moloch."

"What does that mean?" Sora said, poking the page. "Also, how are you reading this?"

Riku ignored the second question and started talking about Moloch without skipping a beat. "Let's see. I don't know what all of this means in depth, but on the surface it says that he was an Ammonite god. Says a bunch of stuff about fire. Apparently Solomon built a temple to him. There's some phrase here about child sacrifice and the words 'to pass through fire.' So I guess it could mean various things, but it has something to do with fire."

Before Sora could interrupt his reading anymore, he pointed out his own birth month and corresponding demon. "Belial - chief of all devils. Blah blah blah, leader of the sons of darkness, wealth, pollution of sanctuary, and extreme proficiency at-"

"What?" Sora asked, bouncing up and down. Riku felt him crowding in to read over his shoulder and closed the book a bit, lucid enough to feel embarrassment again.

"Quit it."

"Tell me what it is Riku!"

Sora yanked the book open and moved even closer. Before the brunet could pick out the word he'd paused on, Riku flipped the page and kept reading silently, his ears going red.

'Why am I even worried? Sora doesn't know Latin.'

However, he was starting to regain control of himself, and he was just composed enough to notice his friend snickering at his side. 'Great.'

"Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want."

"It says you're really good at sex! That's what it says!"

"No, you fucking clown car, it says _Belial_ is really good at sex!"

"Yeah, but Belial corresponds with your birth month right." Sora waggled his eyebrows. "That probably means you've got super sex powers. Or maybe some of that other stuff. What was it? Pollution or wealth or whatever... But it would be funniest if it was the sex thing."

Riku rolled his eyes and let himself get lost in the content again, flipping back to the previous page since the secret was already out.

"Yeah, okay so it says Belial is-"

"Really good at sex!"

"Are you five fucking years old!?"

Sora cackled and kicked his feet up in the air, proving that, yes, indeed he was.

"It says 'fornicatio.' You have to admit that's funny, Riku."

Riku sighed and shook his head. "Anyways," he mumbled, "that's pretty much all it says about him. I wonder about everyone else."

"Ooh! I'll go get their horoscope info."

Before Riku could protest, the brunet was out the door, probably prying crumpled pages from the fists of their unconscious friends in the basement. He wasn't sure it was such a good idea to involve them in another form of, uh, magic, or whatever, but he also couldn't deny how much he yearned for the information inside of the book in his hands. And more than that, he felt the desire to use it on others. That should have been of some concern, but Riku was too busy sopping up demon knowledge to give much of a damn.

Thus, when Sora returned with the astrology junk they'd done earlier, he got right to work, reading and writing all about the different demons and the powers they might confer.

"I wonder what all of this is gonna bring about," Sora said, flipping through _Astrologia_ at Riku's side. "I mean, we won't have any idea unless we test it, but it's so vague. Like, what am I supposed to do with fire? How am I supposed to see what cool new thing I can do?"

"I 'unno."

Sora snickered at his side. "I guess you could work your way up to testing your sex skills after desecrating a church and robbing a bank."

Riku would have rolled his eyes, but they were quite suddenly and inexplicably drawn to Sora instead.

"How about I just test it now on you?" he breathed, not sure where the words were coming from. Some part of him wanted to slap a hand over his mouth and explain away what he'd just said, but the other, more dominant part was telling him to push Sora down and make good on several hundred fantasies.

With a final snap, he shut _Librum Dæmoniorum _and set it down, turning to Sora. The look in his friend's eyes made him come to his senses for just a second, but it wasn't long enough. There was a force inside of him driving him forward, and it didn't matter to that force that the brunet looked so shocked.

Strangely, he didn't receive any resistance as he pressed Sora down on the floor, their bodies flush together. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome anyways, but it made the real Riku feel a bit better. Before he could stop himself (or whatever had taken control), he was kissing the boy he loved. Not a chaste, sweet little kiss either. This was a full-blown, open-mouthed, carnal, sloppy, wet kiss. And as much as Riku had always wanted to do this to Sora, it didn't feel right when he wasn't really in control. Plus, he wasn't sure if Sora was consenting or just tolerating it.

As luck would have it, there would be no answer to either of these questions. At least not right away. Instead of asking, Riku continued to delve into Sora, pushing his hips down and grinding steadily. Sora gasped but still didn't struggle, instead making little noises against Riku's tongue. But just as he was getting to groping under Sora's shirt, a strange, unnatural cacophany filled the air. The sound of beating wings and ominous rumbling overtook everything else. And with unfortunate timing, darkness fell on both Riku and Sora, holding them under with an unearthly grip.

* * *

**End Notes:** LoL, I don't know Latin, bye.


	4. Aftermath

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title:** Aftermath by Tricky

* * *

**Aftermath**

As Riku came to after his strange trance and subsequent unconsciousness, he learned two things. One: waking up on top of your best friend is likely to result in a great deal of discomfort and bruising. And two: waking up on top of your best friend with your tongue still halfway in his mouth and his mother standing in the doorway is not as big of a deal as you'd think. 'At least as long as you live in my world, I guess,' he thought, watching wordlessly as Sora's mother shuffled in with a smile. Her contented humming told him pretty much all he needed to know. Either she was under the sway of whatever they'd unleashed on the world, or she didn't care if he fucked her son. Whatever the case, he was just happy she hadn't gone nuclear on him.

On the other hand, there was Sora. He wasn't awake yet and he was shockingly pallid. But worse than that, there was the immense, crushing guilt Riku felt as he looked at his brunet friend. The fact that his nipples were exposed and his pants were partially pushed down only served to remind him of the despicable things he'd done. It was a nice view, to be sure, but Riku was feeling less than voyeuristic. He'd attacked his friend. And while it was true that there were some genuine feelings behind what had happened, it was also true that he'd not been entirely himself. Something had taken over. And he felt awful for letting it happen. 'I should have fought against it more,' he thought, pushing Sora's clothes back into place. 'I could have hurt him. Traumatized him. Forced him. I could have done the most heinous thing imaginable and I didn't even try to stop myself.' He felt like crying as he looked at his friend again. His face was completely relaxed, innocent, calm. He didn't ever want to replace that expression with one of pain or fear. And he was certain that had almost happened.

Maybe.

He wondered, again, if Sora had been consenting or just letting it happen. He'd responded, after all. And he hadn't exactly put up a fight when he'd been pushed down.

'No, he was probably just in too much shock.' Riku sighed, staring at his hands, then at the floor, then at the ceiling. He felt aimless and broody; a common combination of emotions for him. 'I'm such a trope,' he thought, scrubbing his face with his hands. 'Also, why the hell is Sora still conked out?'

With a knitted brow, he turned and began shaking his friend's leg.

"Sora," he called, changing the shaking to gentle slaps on the thigh. "Sora wake up."

The brunet didn't stir. Frustrated, Riku changed tactics, finding all of Sora's ticklish spots and going to town on them. But still, nothing.

It occurred to him, as he was tickling someone that was basically comatose, that he should go check on the basement quintet. He'd been somewhat responsible for their predicament, so he felt like it was his duty. But, in the end, he was too concerned about Sora to leave.

He didn't know how long he was going to have to wait for his friend to wake up, but he knew he couldn't budge from his side. It bothered him too much that this kept happening.

'Would mysterious Jeff be able to answer my questions?' he wondered, sitting next to Sora's feet. 'Well it's not like I could get access to the store again anyway, but I bet he'd know something about why we keep getting knocked out.' He briefly considered telling his friends about where he and Sora had gotten their books so as to lure them there and get them to kidnap Jeff, but the thought felt dirty the minute it entered his brain. He didn't want anyone else to get involved. Not after the fiasco in Sora's basement. Plus, he couldn't count on them to have the self-control necessary to get the job done. Nor could he encourage others to start bringing their own "powers" to the mix in good conscience. It went against everything he believed.

Still, it occurred to him that there was nothing he could do to stop new "books of power" or whatever from entering the mix. More people were going to get drawn in no matter what he did. Especially during the summer when business at Colonel Custard saw its biggest boom. Both he and Sora had been taken in from there, after all. And that didn't even account for the other stores in the shopping center, plus the movie theater. People would be in and out of there all day every day until school started again. Browsing, shoplifting, and taking advantage of free air conditioning were all common activities, even without all the movie-goers. It was the perfect storm. And maybe that had been the point from the start. The store, both as Chachi's Tchotchkes and Symbol, had opened just at the start of summer vacation. Literally the day school ended the front doors of the place opened.

Riku clenched his fist. 'There's something bigger at work here, and it's definitely all according to plan. There's no telling how many people are ending up there even as I sit jiggling my friend's toe.' Indeed, even as Riku realized just how horrible things were about to get, there was nothing much he could do aside from continue jiggling Sora's toe. It wasn't doing anything to wake him up, really, but it made Riku feel better.

He glanced at the clock in between his trains of thought and realized he'd been sitting there for something close to 45 minutes. He started feeling guilty about prioritizing Sora over everyone else, thinking that the brunet would probably be fine either way and he was just being paranoid. Plus, he already had some practical knowledge of how these post book-usage sleep sessions went, so he figured it would be fine to pop out for a bit. He got up and stretched, preparing himself to face his friends and the wrath he'd likely incurred from them.

He descended the stairs to the ground floor with a tight ball of stress sitting heavy in his stomach, a wave of nausea rolling over him as he thought about everything that had happened once more. He thought about his five friends sleeping on the floor all night, their parents completely without a care about their whereabouts. He thought about Sora still asleep upstairs, his breathing alarmingly shallow and so many questions about his reactions the night before left unanswered. All these things, and more, were blown away in a single breath when he got to the landing of the first floor.

From there, the open floor plan of Sora's family home provided a perfect view of the dining room table where five happy teenagers were now sitting, chowing down on some sort of afternoon breakfast.* Sora's mother stood humming and serving Zexion, her face brightening further as she noticed Riku at the foot of the stairs.

"What the hell-"

"Riku, come eat honey, you must be starving. I made extra large portions for you and Sora since you've been sleeping all day."

Kairi turned to face him with a smirk at that, her cheek bulging with food.

"Uhh, Ms. Carol, how long have our friends been up?" he said, walking slowly towards the table. He felt a bit hesitant to face everyone after what had happened. And the fact that they were all sitting around the table so casually was not helping. It was too surreal.

"You could have just asked us," Tidus butted in, scoffing. "We just woke up."

Selphie nodded in concurrence. "Sora's mom heard us downstairs and offered breakfast."

"Yeah, after you and Sora made us all pass out," Demyx said, pouting. "That was really freaky man. Did you know that was going to happen?"

Riku shook his head hard, but it felt like a lie. He'd had some inkling of what was going to happen, even if he tried to deny it to himself, and he knew he couldn't keep it from everyone. He paused for a moment and sat down with a sigh, thinking he should probably explain everything in detail after brunch. "Let's talk about this after we eat," he murmured, glancing up and thanking her as Sora's mom gave him some eggs. He watched her move back to the kitchen and shuddered, still disturbed by how well she was handling everything.

"Where's Sora?" Kairi said, nudging him with her elbow. "I thought you two were sleeping _together_ all day."

Riku scowled, not feeling even remotely playful. What he'd done to Sora was still itching at the back of his brain, and it wasn't something he was interested in joking about. Even if Kairi didn't know any better, it annoyed him. He shrugged and gave no further answer. Everyone seemed to read his vibe and ate in relative silence, keeping their voices on the quiet side when they did speak to one another.

Riku scarfed down what he could and ushered everyone to Sora's room when they'd finished. They all thanked Sora's mother and tried to help with the dishes, but Riku was too impatient to give them the chance. They ended up seated on the floor in a semi-circle just like the day before, except Sora was the only one knocked out. Riku looked at him with a knitted brow but put it out of his mind, focusing on explaining himself to his friends.

After he'd told the whole story, they looked a bit confused, but readily believed him, much to Riku's shock.

"It took Sora and I like… three days of consistently weird shit happening and horoscopes coming true to really believe this, and you guys are already convinced?"

"Well we have a lot more evidence from your experiences, Riku," Zexion said. "We have no reason to disbelieve you and, also, there's Sora's mom; she's definitely gone off the deep end. The way she was acting was eerily calm."

"I guess that makes sense," Riku muttered, glancing around at his friends. "So… um-"

"Are we pissed at you?" Kairi interrupted, slapping Riku on the head. "Yes. What were you thinking? I mean, I know it was Sora's harebrained idea and you were just strung along like the lovesick puppy you are, but you could have fought harder for our sake Riku."

Everyone else nodded in agreement, giving Riku various expressions of annoyance.

"Also," she continued, "you've left some details out, and I'm curious to know why it is you think you can't trust us with this information."

"Yes, I was wondering that too," Zexion chimed in. "Where exactly did you two get these books?"

Riku froze, hoping his face didn't give anything away. He had to come up with a lie quickly or he knew what was going to happen: a well-meaning investigation by Zexion and Kairi, and a stupid quest for power by Selphie, Demyx, and Tidus. And that wasn't counting whoever else they told or looped into helping them. The situation was already enough of a shit-show without their help.

"We found them," he said, banking on the fact that it wasn't technically a lie. They had "found" them at Symbol, more or less.

Kairi narrowed her eyes at him.

"Where did you find them?"

"Out in the desert when we were skating around."

"Where out in the desert? Seems like a weird place to find books. They don't look very dusty to me."

"They were in a plastic bag-"

"I heard you and Sora talking yesterday and he said you'd just gotten yours whereas he'd clearly had his for some time already."

"It's true we found them separately on different days, but they were basically in the same spot in separate plastic bags."

"Oh, so now they were in separate bags? Before you said "a plastic bag," singular. So what's the truth here Riku?"

"I just told you!"

"No one is buying it," Zexion said, crossing his arms. "Where did you really get them, Ri-" The slate-haired boy's eyes went a bit wide then. Clearly he'd realized something.

'Great,' Riku thought, falling back against the side of Sora's bed. 'I'm sure he figured it out.'

"You two were at my job which- fuck, I need to call them thanks a lot for that Riku," he paused and looked at Kairi. Riku watched in disappointment. "They were investigating that new store that opened in the shopping center. The one next to the sports store."

"Big Paul's Balls and Gear?" Kairi asked.

Zexion nodded.

'Seriously, what is up with the way people name stores in this town?' Riku thought for the millionth time.

Kairi turned her sharp gaze on him. He cringed, ready to face his fate.

"What's over there, Riku?" she said, grabbing his upper arm with surprising strength. "We deserve to know after being put through this. We're your friends."

"You really don't have to make that appeal anymore," Riku grumbled. "I get it. I'm sorry. As much as I wanted to be honest with you, it's dangerous, Kairi. Look what's happened." He gestured to Sora. "Not to mention what happened to you guys. And the fact that Sora got beaned by a baseball the day after this whole thing started. There's been some damage from opening these books. Nothing good can come from it, and I guess I just wanted to mitigate the damage as much as I could."

Kairi paused, then moved her hand to his shoulder. He finally looked in her eyes and she appeared sympathetic. Maybe she'd worked out a bit of why he'd been in such a bad mood, as well. She could usually tell when there was trouble between he and Sora, after all. He smiled at her and started to open his mouth, but was quickly cut off.

"That doesn't answer the question," Zexion said, expression as cold as ever. Demyx touched his arm but there was no change. They seemed to have a silent exchange, though Riku couldn't tell what it meant. Everyone else was dead silent, eyes trained on Riku. "What was over there, Riku? What aren't you telling us?"

"Maybe Riku's right to withhold it," Kairi interjected. "I mean, I think it's just like he said. Nothing good can come of this."

"Riku has probably also realized that it doesn't matter if he tells us or not," Zexion said. "I think he knows that chaos is about to erupt and there's nothing he can do to stop it. It's clear that he and Sora both got their books from that shop which appears to be a knick-knack store but is probably something more. It's also clear that there will be dozens of other people who will enter and end up in similar situations. It doesn't matter if he tells us because it's going to happen whether we like it or not. In fact, I'd argue it's better if he does tell us, because maybe then we'll know what to look out for. We can avoid becoming part of this problem if he's willing to open up."

Riku couldn't argue with that. He also realized that even if he didn't say a word, Selphie and Tidus already had the location and would probably do something stupid all on their own. They were unlikely to listen even if he cautioned them, but what did it matter? They had all they needed to go make whatever mistakes they wanted. At least he could count on Zexion to keep Demyx in check.

"Okay," he started, rubbing his eyes. "I'll tell you about the store, but here's my warning: don't even go near it. Don't get close, don't enter the stores nearby, don't do anything in that shopping center. It will loop you in if you're even in the vicinity, and I can't be sure how far the effect extends. For Sora and I, it seemed like these books were inside the store calling for us. It wasn't something we could fight."

Everyone looked like they wanted to say something, but kept their mouths shut as Riku told them all about Jeff and the mysterious dark shelves and the doors that seemed to lead to nowhere.

"Anyways," he finished, glancing at Zexion, "I think it's safe for some people. I mean, it definitely doesn't work for everyone, and I think it's safe to say that we can rule out our parents. They've all become strange in a very different way after the books or the powers they confer affected them. And, Zex, you work at Colonel Custard like every day so I'm pretty sure you'd have been drawn in by now if it was going to happen."

"I don't enter or leave through the front," Zexion sighed. "You may be right, but I think it's safer if I continue to use the back."

Riku nodded, thankful that Zexion seemed to be on his side. "Have any of the rest of you been over there since the place opened?"

Everyone shook their heads, varying expressions on their faces. Riku could already tell what some of them were thinking and squeezed the bridge of his nose, frustrated at his own inability to do anything.

"I'm being totally serious when I say that you shouldn't go near there, guys. What happened to me last night after I opened _Librum Dæmoniorum _was terrifying. I lost control of my own body. I heard sounds so horrific it's fearsome just remembering them. I almost-"

'…hurt Sora.' He didn't finish it out loud, not ready to tell them about that. He wasn't sure if it would stop them anyways. Or if they'd believe that it was linked to the book. He glanced over at his brunet friend and noticed that his eyes were open. 'What the hell? How long has he been like that?' It was clear it hadn't just happened. He was staring at the ceiling with a completely blank expression, body stiff as a board. It scared the shit out of Riku.

"Sora," he said loudly, leaning over him to touch his face. "Sora are you awake? Sora? Hey, Sora!"

"Alright, quit yelling," the brunet laughed, sticking his tongue out at Riku. "Gotcha."

"Oh my fucking god, Sora, that is not funny!" Riku tackled him in a hug as he continued laughing, ignoring everyone else for a moment. "How long have you been awake?"

"Like 10 minutes? I was listening to you cautioning everyone not to go into Symbol."

"Ugh, do you know how worried I was? You should have said something."

"Lighten up, Riku. We both woke up just fine after we used _Astrologia_, remember?"

"Yes, thank you for putting the rest of us through that," Tidus interrupted, kicking Sora lightly. "We heard from Riku that it was all your idea."

"Oh, uh, sorry guys," he said, "and good morning."

"Dick head," Kairi grumbled, shoving him. "I can't believe you used us as guinea pigs."

"But I had to use people I knew would forgive me."

"And how did the two blonds and their lapdogs escape the impromptu sleepover?" Selphie said. "Wouldn't your best friends have been better candidates? You seriously ruined my night."

"Well Leon and Cloud were having a party, remember? And Roxas and Axel refused us outright."

"They refused _you_ outright," Riku corrected. "I can't have you overstating my involvement in this."

"Well, what's done is done," Sora said, breezing right past that topic. "What I would like to know is how all of you are feeling this morning? Any side effects? Any new powers to speak of?"

None of them seemed to know one way or the other, and their horoscopes didn't shed any light on the situation, either. Sora started to pull out _Astrologia _but seemed to think better of it and instead began scribbling away on the crumpled sheets of paper all around them.

"What are you-?" Riku's eyes widened. That was a first. 'He's writing horoscopes without the book? How long has he been able to do that? Maybe the predictive powers are all him. Were they just unlocked?' He logged that away for further thought later.

"I realized recently that once I've drawn up all the charts and whatnot for people I can predict everything all on my own. Isn't that weird?"

Riku watched him and agreed that, yes, it was super weird. Also, some of the things he was writing were even more off-the-wall than usual. Sora handed him a piece of paper that was less of a prediction and more a strange piece of advice.

"Stop chasing that unidentifiable speck in your eye and let it fall naturally through your aqueous membrane to its final destination. It has places to go and each time you move your eye you impede its progress, so just stop looking at it. You will both be happier for it," he read, confused. What the hell was happening?

He looked over at Sora and the brunet shrugged, giving him a small smirk. "I have no idea where that came from either but I know it's true. Stop stressing at your eye floater, Riku."

The rest were equally strange, predicting things ranging from isolated hail storms on just one person's house to a carton of milk producing a dragon's egg.

"No fucking way," Demyx said, grinning ear-to-ear. "How do I raise a dragon? Can I keep it?"

"Look, all I know is it's in there," Sora laughed, "I don't know anything else about your situation."

Riku cringed. "Sora, this is getting out of hand. This has gone beyond shoes on the table and frog rains, it's starting to get a bit too… magical."

"It's exciting, Riku!" Selphie shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. "Think of what might happen. No one knows anymore. Anything is possible! I can't believe you think this is a bad thing."

"Selphie, exactly what do you think is good about the possibility of monsters appearing in our town?" he said loudly. "You know, you're actually right: anything is possible. That also means terrible things are possible. Sora got hit by a baseball so hard he could have been killed. I found a burning altar inside of my house. And both of our houses were completely covered by wasps one day and no one could leave. Does that sound fun to you!? Is chaos what you want? Or are you just so fucking stupid that you don't understand the danger?"

The room went quiet for a moment as everyone stared at Riku, then glanced at Selphie, eyes wide in anticipation. Before anything else could be said, the brunet girl stormed out, fists clenched at her sides. Riku could only guess where she was going.

"Great," he grumbled, rubbing his forehead. "She'll probably go over to Symbol right away."

Kairi smacked his arm. "That was way harsh, Riku."

"Yeah, you could have been nice about it," Sora said.

He glanced at the two of them and sighed, feeling a bit guilty. "Yeah, I'll apologize later," he said, "for now, why don't we all go home? I'm sure you guys all want to get back to your lives."

Those left in the room nodded and took their leave with promises to meet up again soon. They were all connected by their experiences, after all. Sora went to see everyone out, leaving Riku to sit and mull everything over all over again. He was faced with the reality that he would have to talk to Sora about the previous night when he got back, something that drove a spike of anxiety through his chest. He didn't know how to approach it. He didn't know what to say to make up for it. He didn't even know what Sora thought of the whole thing. He figured the best he could do was apologize sincerely and hope for the best. There were no other options.

Just as he was resigning himself to the weeks of awkwardness that were sure to follow with his friend, the brunet reentered the room and closed the door, his face unreadable. Riku started to open his mouth, but didn't know what to say. He lowered his gaze and tried to put his words in order.

He wasn't given much time to think, however, because Sora crossed the room in seconds and literally mounted him. This time there was no ambiguity about why he was doing it, it was purely sexual. Riku was almost too shocked to respond when the brunet began kissing him. But he'd been trained by his imagination long enough to overcome that initial shock and reciprocate full-force, his hands digging into Sora's thighs the moment he felt the brunet's tongue inside his mouth. He made a noise and started tugging at his friend's shirt, bringing them closer. It was rough. Both of them seemed to be attacking more than kissing. Sora's hands gripped hard at Riku's neck, his jaw, in his hair. They yanked at silver locks as Riku's arms wound painfully tight around his hips.

When Riku growled, he heard Sora moan and gasp into his mouth, their breath quickening at the same instant. He panted and bit into Sora's neck, head swimming from the shock and the pleasure and the headiness of it all. He thought maybe he should stop himself, but didn't want to waste the opportunity at the same time. Especially since Sora had been the one to initiate it.

"I know last night was just because of the book," Sora said, mouth against his ear, "but I took it as a sign. Riku, I've wanted you for a long time."

Riku couldn't even speak. Mostly because his mouth was occupied with Sora's nipple, but also because what Sora was saying was too good to be true. He wondered if it was just some side effect of using the books but brushed the thought aside, knowing he was overthinking things as usual. Instead, he focused on Sora. The brunet was moaning on top of him, so it was hard not to be preoccupied.

He moved his mouth down Sora's stomach, leaving a trail of hickeys. He felt the brunet's crotch pressing against his stomach and groped it with one hand, undoing the button.

"Hold on," Sora gasped, hips grinding a bit closer in contradiction. "Sh-shower. I'm sweaty."

Riku gulped and nodded, realizing he'd forgotten something. "What about your mom?" he panted, kissing Sora's chin.

"Just saw her. She went to my grandma's house. Won't be back for hours."

Riku watched Sora stand on shaky legs.

'This cannot be real,' he thought, following behind is friend in a daze. He continued to think those same words over and over as he and Sora stripped each other and stood naked under the same stream of hot water. And he couldn't really wrap his mind around the reality of the situation even as they exchanged kisses and tentative touches, growing bolder as the excitement mounted.

He washed Sora's entire body, biting his inner thighs and tasting soap as his fingers finally slipped inside. The brunet gasped (with good reason), but didn't stop Riku or even question what he was doing. It seemed he really had thought it through. That just turned Riku on more.

He stood and ground himself against Sora, fingers pressing deeper.

"Ngh, Riku…"

He let out a shaky breath, trying not to let it overwhelm him. Sora was outdoing the fantasy version of himself by leaps and bounds, and Riku's head was swimming with teenage lust. Being gentle is not so easy when the person you love is pretty much begging to be fucked by you.

But Sora didn't seem to mind, anyways. He was relaxing like he knew exactly what to do already. His body was either naturally built to be plowed into, or he'd had some kind of experience. Riku logged that thought away for later and pressed Sora against the wall, rubbing his cock against the brunet's entrance.

"Put- put it in," Sora gasped. "I want to feel it deeper."

Riku pushed in just a bit, completely unhesitating. He watched Sora react and shuddered, eyes turning to slits.

"Shit," he grunted, pushing Sora harder into the wall, "are you trying to provoke me?"

The brunet just moaned and bit one of Riku's fingers, a little smile evident just at one corner of his mouth.

"Shit," Riku said again, pressing his forehead against Sora's shoulder. He pushed in and out of him and it occurred to him that Sora didn't seem to be hurting at all. Or, if he was, he was enjoying it (judging from his moans).

'God, I would never have imagined this,' he thought, unable to spend much more time mulling it over as the pleasure carried him away.

He could feel Sora's body tensing under his hands and his insides twitching when the right places were groped. He could hear both of them panting in rhythm with his thrusts and it drove him crazy.

And he couldn't stop.

Despite how good he felt, despite how much he loved Sora, despite how many times he'd jerked off thinking about almost the exact scenario he was in, he knew he could keep going. His stamina wasn't flagging in the slightest. By the time he realized how far he'd gone, they were back in Sora's room fucking for the fifth time, and Sora was the only one coming again. The brunet looked like he was no longer able to form words properly, his body so unwound and overwhelmed with pleasure that he'd started to drool just a bit.

Still, his cock hardened again within seconds of Riku grinding against him inside.

"Can I keep going?" he murmured, lifting Sora's ass off the ground a bit more.

"Yes," the brunet moaned.

Riku responded by fucking him senseless one more time, licking his lips as he saw Sora climax again and finally gave in himself.

"You can come inside," Sora murmured, answering before Riku had the chance to ask.

Riku grunted and did just that, hips slamming into Sora a few more times as he shuddered.

Neither of them was able to stay awake much longer after that. The exhaustion and release quickly took them under and they only awoke because of the heat. Their dry mouths and sticky skin were immensely uncomfortable, and there was Sora's mother to worry about as well.

Riku chuckled a little to himself as he looked at the pile of clothes they'd dragged back from the bathroom with them, still reeling from everything that had happened.

"I can't believe we did this. I can't believe it."

"Mm, well it seemed like the obvious next step, didn't it?" Sora murmured, slipping down lower on his back. "It was hanging over us. Plus, I had a sort of vision about this. Horoscopes and all that."

Riku snorted. "Yeah, well next time you could tell me about stuff that involves me beforehand you know."

"But it wouldn't be nearly as fun that way, Riku."

They frowned at each other simultaneously. "You and your weird, corny cougar-mom style jokes I swear."

"I'm just lightening the mood."

"Bad humor just makes me cranky."

"Everything makes you cranky. Which is why you need a foil." The brunet pointed at his own face with both hands, grinning. "I make you seem less like an asshole and more like a brooding, mysterious misanthrope."

"No, you make yourself look like an idiot which allows me the space to fade into the background."

Sora shrugged. "Whatever works."

"Why are you always calling me an asshole, anyway?" Riku said, nudging the brunet. "I didn't earn this title."

"You did and you do. Daily."

"How?"

"Just a bunch of the things you do and say and react to. It's cool though man we're teenagers, we're supposed to be assholes. I'm the in-your-face asshole and you're the pretentious-broody-wallflower asshole."

Riku smiled. "Well, it seems we're the main characters and the plot has developed. I'm your asshole now."

"Hah?"

Riku turned his head a bit, his brow knitting. "You are- I mean, you did- you knew what I was thinking, right? You knew that I-"

"I could tell you wanted to fuck me too, yeah." Sora sat up some, and started to open his mouth. He seemed to think better of it and closed it, staring at Riku, his gears clearly clicking.

"Um, that's not exactly all of it," Riku said, sighing.

He knew right away that he'd said the wrong thing. This was not what Sora was looking for, and it ran silently between them like an electric shock. He knew what was coming next would not be as gentle as he would like, and he knew he had to be prepared for the mountains of used tissues he'd be mopping his tears up with later that night. With a full inhale and exhale, he cleared his mind.

"I'd really like for this to be a strictly sex kind of thing," Sora said, his tone as affable as ever. "I thought you wanted the same. There was always the sexual tension there, and I kind of guessed I was probably gay, or mostly gay, or whatever you call how I am. But, Riku, you're my best friend, and that's what I need you to be. Just that."

"Okay, anyway," Riku said, tossing aside everything inside as well as he could. He felt like he was going to vomit. "I would talk to you some more about that but we could beat this subject to death and still find no satisfactory ending. I think I'm just going home."

"Riku-"

He stood up abruptly to stop Sora from talking, shuffling his feet around in the shirt he'd cast off onto the ground. He felt just the way his shirt looked: deflated, lifeless, trampled on. 'It's really my fault for jumping the gun, I guess.' He tried not to look at Sora at all as he got dressed, casting only occasional peripheral glances his way. Or, well, it was more like the brunet lingered in his vision whether he wanted him to or not, so it was pretty much unavoidable. He felt a pang each and every time Sora's motionless figure entered his field of vision. Every time.

For once, instead of thinking he just moved, swooping _Librum Dæmoniorum _up off the ground with an unnecessary flourish. He stared at it as it slid into his palm and felt momentarily relieved. All his anxiety and hurt was replaced with fixation, obsession, desire. He pushed those down to huddle with the rest of his mixed up emotions and gave Sora a half-hearted wave, walking out the door before he professed everything he'd been hiding up until that moment. They both already knew, anyways. It didn't matter if he voiced it or not, Sora wasn't going to be his. His ass could be, at the very least. That was made clear. But that didn't matter as much to Riku as he'd thought. Or maybe that was just his lowered sperm count talking.

In any case, he didn't want to think about anything for awhile. He didn't want to think about soft brown hair and soft peach skin. He didn't want to think about the moans he'd heard, the heartbeat he'd felt, how hot his mouth had been. He also didn't want to think about the air buzzing all around him, the hum of desire that electrified his whole body as it emanated from the book sitting in his hands. But most of all, he didn't want to think about the wings still beating in his ears and the soft voice calling behind the sound, telling him that shadows were coming soon.


	5. Strange Things Will Happen

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title: **Strange Things Will Happen - The Radio Dept.

* * *

**Strange Things Will Happen**

'This is shit,' Riku thought. He looked around at his friends, then at the stuff scattered on his carpet in front of them, and then back at his friends again. This was exactly what he'd been trying to prevent.

Dial back one day.

Riku had gone home after the whole cult-like knockout party in Sora's basement, thinking that he'd been totally rejected and relegated to the role of sex friend. He wrote up this whole shitty, cliche plot in his head in which Sora kept him around as a sex partner for years and years. They went off to college and kept on fucking. And even as it became more tender, Sora became more and more mature about it, realizing he was hurting Riku. So one day he breaks off their arrangement in pity, yanking away the last thing keeping Riku holding on. And then Riku sees Sora fall in love with someone else and feels like dying, but he never does anything because he doesn't want Sora to blame himself. And then it's just one long horrible march towards death for Riku, who spends years trying and failing to find someone else to love. _Fin._

That was how he imagined it on his walk home, though he knew it was self-absorbed as all hell. He had several other, equally self-absorbed versions too. One where he died from cancer and got the pleasure of at least being lied to on his deathbed. Sora would whisper "I love you," even though he didn't mean it. That was weirdly comforting to Riku. Anyways, he cried a lot that night. But he found his distraction soon enough. Obviously, with _Librum Dæmoniorum_ right there, it was hard for him to stay miserable. He was constantly thinking about cracking that thing open and digging around some more. So he did.

Throwing caution to the wind, he dove right in. It was a great diversion. He discovered a lot about demonology, which is what he knew to call it only after some time on the computer. He still hadn't figured out how all the things he had learned factored into what was happening, or what the results of his discoveries might be, but it was fascinating regardless. Unlike Sora, he had no divination powers, but he was starting to suspect something else was waiting to be unlocked inside of him. Something just beyond his grasp. He still hadn't finished reading _Librum Dæmoniorum_ and he suspected that the key would come when he reached that final page. He wanted to spend more time savoring the experience, however, so he wasn't sure when he would feel like taking the next step.

In any case, Riku ended up pulling an all-nighter which seemed to be dragging into an all-dayer. It would have gone on like that too, if it weren't for the arrival of his friends.

It wasn't the ones he was expecting, even, which made their interruption even more jarring.

"Yo," Axel said, "you look great." He entered Riku's house without invitation and everyone else followed.

Predictably, Roxas was right behind the redhead, and he raised his eyebrows as soon as he met Riku's eyes. "Your eyes are almost completely red right now, just so you know."

Riku shrugged and slammed the door behind the final person, not even sure who all the members of the group were. He was too disoriented.

None of them really spoke as they ascended the stairs, which was weird since they were usually pretty boisterous. It seemed this was to be a solemn affair, the nature of which still eluded Riku. It didn't help that he was suddenly feeling all of the crushing exhaustion and defeat he'd been diverting, and his eyes were too bleary to make out the details of anything anymore.

"Shut the door, Riku," Sora said, suddenly appearing at his side. Riku jumped, smiling deliriously when he noticed the brunet. He did as he was told and sat down in the circle that had formed on the floor.

"Why does everyone seem to like sitting in circles so much lately?" Riku said, not actually meaning to give voice to the thought. Nobody paid it much attention anyways, so he shrugged and waited for someone to explain what was going on, wishing he'd gone to bed instead of answering the door.

"There's been a development," Sora said, apparently opening the floodgate for everyone else; they all began chiming in at once, explaining what had been happening to them and what they'd seen and so on and so forth. It was all very bland to Riku who had, at some point, become really very bored by the strange events he and Sora had unleashed. Or maybe that was just because of the sleep deprivation. In any case, he had to try and swallow down the nasty taste in his mouth before he could even consider listening to them, so he spent some time focusing on that while they all stared at him, still talking.

It seemed to occur to Cloud first that Riku wasn't really listening, and then they finally all went silent, staring at him expectantly.

"Why are you all here?" he asked, trying to get back to square one. "Actually, I know I'm the one who just asked but… Look, honestly, I don't know how well I can absorb all of this right now."

Cloud sighed and mumbled something to Sora, who nodded and grabbed Riku by the arm.

"All right, this was a bad idea. Go to bed and we'll explain everything later."

Riku nodded with a smile and let Sora put him to bed, too sleepy to react as the brunet climbed in with him.

"Well we're going to help ourselves to the basement here, then," Axel said, ushering everyone else out. "Don't get mad if we empty out your fridge."

"Mom doesn't care," Riku said, half-incoherent. He was vaguely aware that Sora was shooing Axel away, but he was already basically asleep.

It was such a strange, floating, dreamless sleep that he woke up feeling as though he'd never slept at all. He wasn't exhausted anymore, at least, but he'd been aware of everything the whole time, and it had only been seconds.

But he knew that wasn't right. It was at least midday. He could tell by the way the light was hitting his windows. 'It's been at least 3 hours,' he thought, checking the clock on his wall.

"2:30. Great."

He then became very aware of Sora laying at his side. The brunet was awake, but he wasn't saying anything, just staring at Riku. It was freaking him out.

"Are you playing another trick on me?*" Riku asked, frowning. "It wasn't funny the first time."

Sora shook his head. "No, I was just thinking."

Riku didn't even really want to ask "about what." He didn't want to know because, somehow, he felt like he was going to be disappointed or upset again. He didn't need anything more from Sora. In fact, he hadn't realized it until that moment, but he felt like he didn't want to be around Sora at all. Probably not for a few more weeks, at least. In spite of all of that, Sora seemed to have decided to spill his guts all on his own.

"I was thinking about what you said the yesterday," he mumbled, sitting up halfway and staring at Riku. "I wondered why I was blind before. It seems obvious now."

Riku felt almost physically hurt. The way Sora was talking about it as though it had nothing to do with him made him feel worthless. He sagged against his knees and laughed, hanging his head. The wound was fresh all over again.

"Wait, Riku," Sora said, gripping his arm, "I wasn't making light of it, I promise. I guess I'm just trying to work out what's happening. It kind of changes things-"

"No it doesn't," Riku snapped, throwing off the covers and standing. "You don't feel anything back, so it doesn't change anything. I'll just keep wallowing like I always have and you keep on living your life."

They were both silent for a moment, Riku staring at the ground even as he felt Sora's stare pierce his back. He clenched and unclenched one fist, not sure what he was feeling, exactly. Mostly, he was just tired. Spiritually tired.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Riku," Sora said quietly, getting out of the bed to stand behind him. "I never even thought about things that way. I never thought you had feelings for me other than what I was feeling."

"I appreciate what you're trying to do right now, Sora, I really do," Riku interrupted, "but it doesn't help. I'm sorry. It's not your fault, but it doesn't help. And honestly? I really can't be around you alone right now. Or around you at all, maybe. I don't know…"

There was more silence after he trailed off and he felt Sora heave a sigh behind him. He was leaning heavy on his back now, forehead against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Riku," Sora choked. Riku whipped around and instantly felt horrible. He hadn't seen Sora with a face full of tears like that in years. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, hey." Riku wrapped his arms around the brunet, not sure why he was the one doing the consoling after having his heart impaled and ripped out multiple times. Nonetheless, he continued to hug Sora and run his hands up and down his back, his chest a complicated knot of emotion.

"It's not your fault," he said, not sure what else to say. "I shouldn't have ever told you."

"What! So you would have to continue suffering for your whole life because of me? To spare my feelings?"

Riku was a little taken aback, wondering when Sora had gotten so perceptive. He wouldn't have even known why he was crying in the past, let alone knowing what Riku was going through. Yet there he was, saying exactly what was on Riku's mind, succinctly laying out why their situation had always been so tricky for the bigger boy. He sort of felt like the book was to blame, but he shoved that aside for the moment, hugging Sora a little tighter.

"Look, to be honest, this is all a little much for both of us, I think," Riku said. "We're in high school, you know? Stuff is hard, we still get stuck in these thought patterns where someone has to bear the guilt. Someone has to be the villain and someone has to be the hero. But sometimes, that's not how it works."

Sora sniffled and clutched onto his shirt. "I know," he said. "It still doesn't change the pain, does it?"

Riku laughed a little and shook his head. "No. It's still going to hurt, and it may hurt even more since we know no one is to blame here."

They both stood silently once more, and Sora's tears came to a stop. There was nothing to do but cling on and wait for it to feel right to separate. Eventually they did, smiling sheepishly at one another and making a promise to talk it out more when there were fewer emotions involved. Riku thought to himself that that might take longer than Sora was willing to wait.

* * *

After he and Riku had had their mini talk, the brunet had gone downstairs to get everyone, so the group reconvened in Riku's bedroom.

"Why couldn't we stay in the basement?" Axel complained. "You guys have everything down there."

"It would be a distraction," Riku said, smiling at his friends and greeting them properly. He took note of who all was there: Xemnas, Saix, Roxas, Axel, Demyx, Zexion, Leon, Cloud, and Kairi were all present. They were only missing Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, and Namine. He worried what they were up to, but he also kind of didn't give a shit. He was tired of trying to control everything.

"What's this all about?" Riku asked finally, sitting down with everyone else. He watched as they all looked at each other before producing a small duffel bag toted by Xemnas, who had been fairly silent up until that point.

"We've all received things," he said, opening the bag and disseminating its contents. Everyone grabbed at the items produced with a familiar fervor, and Riku felt his gut constrict.

"Yeah, so, to sum up, everyone has been lured into Symbol and we're not even sure how many other people have been in there aside from us, but we're all part of this now," Demyx said, happily fiddling with his item. It appeared that not all of them were books. In fact, the only ones who seemed to be holding books were Axel and Zexion. They hadn't opened them yet, and most of the others weren't technically holding just items, but items stored inside of those bags. The bag Jeff had used for Sora and Riku as well.

"Let's destroy them," Riku said immediately, reaching for Axel's book. The redhead yanked it away with wild eyes, regaining himself a few seconds later. He stared at Riku. "You see why I'm saying that don't you?" Riku looked around at everyone in the circle. "You all see why I'm saying that?"

They nodded silently but everyone still looked uncertain. He looked to Sora for backup, though he should have known that that was an empty well. The brunet was nothing if not excited, and he seemed to be itching to get those bags open and see what was inside. Riku sighed.

"Please tell me you'll listen. We need to at least try-"

"I'm sure this will shock you, but I'm not so much in agreement with you anymore, Riku," Zexion chimed in, calmly laying his book in his lap. "I think you need to hear about my experience."

Everyone seemed to perk up at that.

"I was waiting to explain this until we were all gathered," he said, glancing at Sora. "After I was told that so many others had been to the store, I was alarmed, and I felt it would be wise for us all to evaluate things together."

Riku nodded. "Reasonable."

Zexion nodded back. "So here's what happened."

Unlike the rest of them, Zexion had been plucked straight out of work.

"One moment I was standing there listening to some customer complaining about how the fudge on her sundae was not hot enough, and the next I was engulfed in… blueness. Just… blue. I hate to call it light, but that's what it most closely resembled. Though I have to say, it was fundamentally different in a number of ways, starting with the fact that I could feel it all over me." He went on about the "blue" that surrounded him and its properties at some length before Demyx managed to stop him, directing him back to the main topic.

"Well, I made notes about it, if you want to see them later," Zexion said, continuing the story. "I emerged from the blue into the store you described and 'Jeff' was there. He seemed a little surprised to see me, but then he just smiled enigmatically."

Zexion then told them pretty much the same story as Riku and Sora, to an extent. Apparently he'd been drawn to something, and had fought off the feeling about as successfully as Riku had.

"I turned away from it entirely," he said, "and Jeff raised an eyebrow. He seemed ready for it, I suppose, though I might be reading too much into it. In any case, he told me, before I even asked, that there wasn't much he could give me in terms of information, but there was one thing he could say. It wasn't very helpful, unfortunately. I only remember that I could no longer fight the temptation and grabbed what was next to me and approached. As he was putting it in the bag, he said "the call is getting stronger," and with that, I was sent back. I didn't get a chance to move myself, I was simply back behind the counter at work, and there was no discernible change in time. Yet I was in fact holding what I have with me right now." He picked up his book and wiggled it a little. "I think there is something at work here, and I think there's a reason we're receiving these things. There's something we're supposed to do."

Riku rolled that around in his head for a moment, digesting everything he'd just heard with a slight frown. Finally he turned to Axel. It was a long shot, but sometimes he could talk reason into the redhead when no one else would listen to him.

"That sounds like bullshit to me," Riku said. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe in all this fate and destiny crap."

"I didn't say it was fate or destiny," Zexion replied, folding his hands in his lap. "Someone very well may have orchestrated this. Jeff himself could be responsible. But the fact remains that there is a bigger picture that we're missing-"

"You can't possibly know that," Axel said. "Look, that's pure assumption you're running on. And if your assumption is correct and Jeff is orchestrating something like you said, that means we're being used. And whether it's for some greater good or not, I don't like the idea of being used. Especially without being told anything."

Riku nodded enthusiastically, relieved that Axel had pulled through for him. "Exactly. And for all we know, Jeff is some evil inter-dimensional sorcerer trying to trick us. We can't know his motives. We also don't know that there even is some bigger picture, like Axel said. What if when he said that stuff about the call getting stronger he meant something really underwhelming like… I don't know. The call of these items is getting stronger. Maybe that's all there is to it. He's some dude who runs a shop that dispenses semi-magical items and even he's not sure why. That's the feeling I got when I talked to him."

"You guys are such downers," Sora sighed, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning against Riku's bed. "I'm bored."

"You're too carefree," Roxas chided, shooting Sora a pointed look. "You should be more concerned. Think about what's happening here. Whether fate, destiny… 'Jeff,' or some other power — sinister or otherwise — is responsible for what's going on, we're being affected by this. Our families are being affected by this. And this town, and possibly many others, are being affected by this. This isn't just some trivial matter, Sora."

Sora raised his eyebrows, his mien surprisingly calm. "Maybe my words have confused you. I haven't for a second underestimated the gravity of this situation," he said, his voice lower than Riku had ever heard it. "But I'd like to remind all of you that, as far as this group is concerned, I was the first person in there. Riku and I were the first affected by all of this. I've been changed. With that has come some interesting side effects, and one of them is that I know almost everything that's likely to happen in the next several months. Can any of the rest of you say the same?"

Everyone went silent, looking around at each other in shock. Many of them hadn't been around Sora since he'd begun to get all lucid and wise, so it felt like someone else was speaking. They didn't recognize the person he'd become. And, all said and done, he had a point. He had a general idea of what was coming for at least seven of the major players in this whole fiasco, and he was growing more rational by the day. Riku wasn't sure what to think anymore.

"My opinion is that everyone should do what they want with their items," Sora said, his face splitting into a grin. "I don't know everything, of course, so I can't say there won't be challenges or things to fear ahead of us, but I can say with certainty that we'll all get through this together."

"And so we rely on the power of friendship to carry us through yet again," Xemnas said dryly.

"This isn't my little pony," Axel laughed.

Sora shrugged. "My knowledge is based on more than mere assumptions, you know."

Riku stared at him, then at each of his friends, knowing that this was the breaking point. And all he could think was, 'This is shit.'

* * *

**End Notes:** Wow, I doubt anyone will even read this because I have literally not updated in eons. Anyways, I'm still writing it. In fact, I've written a lot more of it than this, but it is so unorganized and messed up that I haven't created anything that can be used as a chapter. This is, in fact, why this chapter took so damn long. But these are simply excuses.


	6. Black Out Days

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title: **Black Out Days - Phantogram

* * *

**Black Out Days**

Since everyone had come over with their special new toys and Riku had been delving into his right before their arrival, it was a foregone conclusion that they'd all start playing around together. Everyone knew how dangerous it was — even acknowledged aloud it as a group — but proceeded onwards regardless.

It wasn't the same as when Sora and Riku had first opened Astrologia. They'd become engrossed together, equally lost and equally impacted by the power of what they'd unleashed. Rather than pairing off as might have seemed natural from the number of couples in the room, they all began testing their items individually, chattering to each other in between. It was strange, Riku had expected them all to have less control of themselves, and he wasn't sure what to make of how things were unfolding. He decided to ignore it, again adopting his new "fuck it all" attitude and opening _Librum Dæmoniorum_. He was quickly distracted away by Roxas, however, who seemed to already be experiencing something weird due to the rings he'd just put on.

There was a sudden tension and palpable heaviness in the air as they slid to the base of his fingers. Riku could taste electricity and metal, and when he breathed in, it nearly made him choke. The acrid quality of the air dissipated soon after and left everyone staring in wonderment, not sure what was happening or what was about to happen. Roxas simply sat and waited, seemingly unconcerned. Moments later, he opened his hand and there was a slip of paper against his palm.

"What the hell…" Riku murmured, inching forward along with everyone else.

Roxas looked around with a wild grin and read aloud. "Guess who?"

No one responded. They weren't meant to, in fact, but still, the question had been posed. The answer was immediately forthcoming as a second piece of paper appeared in Roxas' hand. He read, "Me" and everyone began murmuring, questions flying about what was happening and what that really meant.

"Is this some kind of stupid joke?" Roxas laughed. His eyes went wide as soon as he finished that sentence, and everyone went back to staring, wondering if more notes were coming.

That didn't seem to be the case, this time, as Roxas' hands remained empty and limp in front of him, the blond boy's eyes so wide one could only guess at what he was experiencing.

Axel started to worry not long after this began and leaned towards his lover, gently grabbing his shoulder. "Um… Roxy?"

"Oh my god," Roxas responded, turning to Axel. "It's really me. He's- I'm talking to me." He paused and shook his head, addressing the group. "Wait, I mean, technically I'm listening to me right now but also-"

"So somehow another form of you is contacting you right now," Zexion said.

Roxas nodded, then explained a little further. "I don't know how else to say this, but future me is contacting me right now through a time machine. And he says the reason none of you can see or hear or interact with him is that the time machine doesn't exist yet, so… there's that."

Everyone took this rather well. Several people started laughing and rediscovered their own items, reinstating the steady hum of conversation in the room. Sora crawled over to where Roxas was and started chatting with him, pulling out some paper and scribbling God knew what. Riku directed his attention back to _Librum Dæmoniorum_ and tried not to be disconcerted by what was unfolding around him.

Axel was to his right frowning intensely at the pages in front of him and muttering about his cat. Across from him, Demyx sat clumsily strumming an otherworldly tune and watching in wonder as something began materializing in front of him. To his left, Xemnas was staring intently into a hand mirror and speaking to a flickering image within. It was all making his stomach turn.

But he couldn't deny how exhilarating it was. Ultimately, Sora was right: the world was becoming an amazing place. A terrifying, existentially confusing place, but it certainly had an air of excitement about it. And as much as _Librum Dæmoniorum_ called to him, he was becoming fascinated with what was happening around him. It was enough to break the spell for a time, so he shut his little black book and inched over to Kairi. Her gaze snapped up to meet his immediately, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Riku, unsure what else to do, looked around, trying to figure out what was happening.

"Uhhh-"

"You had sex with Sora!?" she whispered harshly, grabbing him by the ear. "What happened? Tell me-" She paused and narrowed her eyes, letting him go soon after. "Never mind, I got it already."

Riku rubbed his ear and looked around again, this time to make sure Sora wasn't paying attention. He wasn't. He looked at Kairi again and she was wearing a knowing smirk.

"What did you just do?" Riku sighed, flopping down next to her.

"I read your thoughts, dumbass," she said, clutching the silver bead now resting against her chest. "I don't know how I know this, but this necklace allows me to read them. To an extent."

"Are you going to explain to what extent?"

"If you shut the hell up I will, you nasty." She frowned and shook her head. "I didn't want to see all of that Riku, I really did not."

Riku couldn't help but laugh.

"Anyways," she grumbled, "apparently I can only see memories and thoughts attached to strong emotions." Her gaze softened. "Do you want to talk?"

Riku took her in for a moment. Her indigo eyes hadn't changed in all the years he'd known her. Not just the color, but their clarity and insight. He had come to appreciate and value her companionship a lot, though for years he'd envied her position next to Sora. In fact, he remembered a time when Sora had been "in love" with her and he'd wanted so desperately to be able to hate her. That was not easy to face, so he often felt ashamed in front of Kairi, not knowing why. In the end, she was always there for him as a genuine friend; it seemed only fitting that she'd become some kind of empath. He breathed out and took her hand, smiling and shaking his head.

"Maybe when it's less raw."

She nodded knowingly and closed her eyes (perhaps to focus), allowing Riku to wander off to someone else.

He moved towards Zexion, and discovered what was happening around the circle along the way. Xemnas was talking to dead people, and Saix was speaking to Demyx about astral projection as the blond made copies of himself out of various substances. Cloud and Leon looked like they were literally comatose so Riku steered clear of them for the time being. And he still couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with Axel. Roxas and Sora were hovering around him, but they looked just as confused as he was. When he finally got to Zexion, he was relieved to find his powers somewhat less confusing.

"It's a means of copying others," Zexion said, pointing at the pages. "I just need to understand this method and I'll be able to do, for example, this."

Riku blinked and saw himself sitting where Zexion had been.

"Holy shit."

"Holy shit," Zexion-Riku echoed mockingly, laughing.

Riku was surprised to see this side of Zexion. He hadn't been very playful in years past, though he was guessing that was because they hadn't been particularly close. The whole situation with Symbol and the "items of power" and all of that appeared to be bringing them all closer.

Riku smiled at himself, then Zexion as the slate-haired boy reverted to his original form. He received a smirk and a pat on the shoulder in return, and then decided it was time to check on Leon and Cloud.

Kairi was already at their side as he crawled over to them, her hand on Leon's forehead.

"Something is happening," she said, frowning at Riku. "It's too much. I can't even comprehend it."

"Maybe that's why they're out," Riku said, shaking Cloud's foot. "Maybe it was too much." Riku contemplated that for a moment and shuddered, staring at his friends' pale forms.

"I don't think there's anything we can do, but something tells me they'll be fine," Kairi muttered, steering Riku towards Axel. "Let's see what they're up to."

He nodded and followed her to the trio mingling near his bed post. Axel was saying something animatedly and seemed to become more excited as Riku and Kairi approached. He wasn't surprised. Sora had been the same after first opening _Astrologia_, after all.

"It's another form of augury," Axel said, trying to catch them up. "So, this is going to sound kind of gross, but I can read guts."

"Guts," Riku said flatly, flipping his book closed to read the cover. _Haruspicina and Other Practices_. He didn't know what that meant, so he took Axel's word for it.

"There are other things in here that I haven't really figured out yet," Axel continued, tapping the cover. "Hepatoscopy, some sort of animal telepathy with a "chosen vessel," and usage of other things to determine the future. Like, apparently I can use a crystal ball or mirrors or something but it won't work as well."

Sora nodded as if all of this was already abundantly clear to him. Roxas looked unfazed, then chuckled at something no one else heard. Riku and Kairi just stood staring.

They both seemed to have a personal crisis at the same time, which Riku was sure Kairi understood right away from her new empathic abilities. They looked at each other and Kairi sighed, patting his arm.

"This is the way things are now, I guess." She walked away to sit by Cloud and Leon again, staring into the distance.

Riku's unease grew as he saw her expression, but he didn't know what to do about any of it. He moved back to his original spot and opened _Librum Dæmoniorum_ thoughtlessly, deciding it was time.

He read the final few pages.

He had been right to put it off, he quickly realized. This was where the really good stuff was lurking. After reading it and rereading it several times, he could feel his pulse pounding in every vein. The possibilities were so close at hand, so tantalizingly close, he wanted to take the next step immediately. There was nothing stopping him.

Sora had sidled up to him at some point during his reading, so he gave him a small smile, his hand snaking instinctively around his friend's waist.

"You're curious?" he said, shocked at the timbre of his voice. There was something not quite right about it. He was also aware that he hadn't made a conscious decision to grope his friend, yet there he was, petting down his side. It didn't stop him, but some part of him started to reconsider things.

Sora just sat smiling and blushing, eventually saying he wanted to know what Riku had found out. But not before they'd gotten close to an inappropriate degree. If everyone had not been so absorbed in what they were doing, the normal side of Riku would have been ashamed.

"I finished reading," he said softly, shifting Sora in his lap. "There's a process I need to carry out, but after I do, I can unseal their powers. The demons, I mean."

Sora looked flushed and excited, perhaps for multiple reasons. He urged Riku to move forward with it, to take the next step. Riku, or some part of himself he wasn't quite in control of, smiled and asked Sora to use his lap as a pillow. "I'll be out for a little while, so watch over me."

Sora nodded and they stared at each other until Riku's eyes rolled back. He heard Sora's gasp but was too distanced from it to pay him any mind. The method for unsealing was something Riku didn't fully understand. Or, at least, he didn't understand the component parts. He now knew that the first part was mostly involuntary as his eyes had rolled back all on their own after he'd decided to start the process. From there, it was all in his mind. But what confused him was what he was supposed to be seeing as he continued. It said something about finding the desired "gate," then opening it, and then it was supposed to just happen. He didn't know how to open these "gates," nor did he know what they would look like, but he went for it anyways.

As soon as he started concentrating, the noises he'd heard during his first reading of the book came flooding into his mind. He jumped a little, but tried not to lose focus as they grew louder. His heart was pounding harder than he'd expected, so he did what he could to even out his breathing, stepping forward in his mind. It was hard to determine where he was going since he was surrounded by complete darkness, so he tried to use senses other than sight to guide him.

He took another step forward and wondered at the warmth of this place. It was almost hot. He touched his skin and noted that it was still visible to him. He was the only thing visible in the entire space. For all he knew, he was floating in the air, stepping on something he'd constructed in his mind. Though he quickly came to the conclusion that this wasn't he case. There was something there. He was inside an enclosed space, and despite how the utter blackness made it appear infinite, there were boundaries. He began to sense them. He also sensed something far behind him. It was pulsing, telling him that that was where he needed to go. He turned around and followed the rhythm, a smile forming on his lips as he grew closer. This was it. This was what he desired.

The heat only increased as he drew closer and finally gained sight of what he was aiming for. It was emanating from inside the door that rose in front of him. 'This is less of a gate and more of a door,' he thought, jumping as the words echoed around him. 'I guess my thoughts would be spoken word in this place.'

He drew his attention back to the gate, realizing he didn't know how to open it for sure. He assumed it meant literally opening it with his own two hands, but maybe there was something else he was missing. All fear and doubt left his body as he grew closer, however. Touching his hand to the stone told him exactly what he needed to know. All he had to do was push and it would yield to him. He felt the urge to smile again. But there was something manic about the feeling that scared him. He strengthened his resolve and looked up at the towering portal, surprised to find it somewhat lackluster. There were symbols of Belial, ones which he'd grown rather familiar with, and some writing he understood but couldn't express, but little else. It was oddly minimal. 'There's a certain beauty to that, I suppose,' he murmured, pulling the left half open without even thinking.

He heard a roaring shriek followed by thousands of whispers, the air inside scorching him and leaving him blind for a moment. Rather than frightening him, it drew him in further. He was dying to know what would happen when he flung it the rest of the way open. He gripped both halves of the door and pulled with all his might. This turned out to be a little unnecessary, as the door gave way to him with an ease belying its weight. In the corporeal world, his extra effort would have landed him flat on his ass, but here he glided back, flipped once, and landed gracefully with one hand on the ground. He looked up from this position, glad no one was there to see it.

'I look like catwoman,' he thought, laughing. He was cut off mid-chuckle as the whispers rose to a cacophony, then morphed into screams. He ground his teeth together and stood up, blinded by the light pouring from inside the door. The heat would have seared his skin off were he in the real world, he knew. It wasn't unpleasant, strangely enough. He walked towards it and stood waiting, knowing something more was coming.

He revealed himself slowly, the demon within, his shambling form emerging from the heat and light with little ceremony. Riku barely laid his eyes on it before a flash filled the space before him, blinding him momentarily.

When Riku was finally able to take him in, he raised his eyebrows in disbelief, his expectations dashed to pieces. He knew he'd seen something else when the demon had first appeared from beyond the gate, but that was gone now. Instead, there he stood, nothing more than what appeared to be a normal, human man. Admittedly, he was good looking in a sort of otherworldly way. But he was still just a man. As Riku's mind adjusted to this revelation, Belial stepped all the way forward and the door slammed behind him, disappearing into the blackness.

"Hey, there," the demon said, suddenly directly in front of Riku. "I see you've taken control, finally."

Riku nodded, dumbfounded, and thought about what he should say. There were a million things running around in his head, and none of them were particularly nice. He kind of wanted to laugh, but he could see something sinister in Belial's eyes that told him to hold it in.

"Why do you need such a big door if you're this small?" he blurted, immediately regretting it. He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, finding the whole situation ridiculous.

Belial, despite the menace in his eyes, smiled and crossed his arms in front of him. "No one has ever asked me that."

Riku laughed then, some of the tension dissipating with the smile on the demon's lips. He hoped it didn't seem like he was laughing directly at the demon. He didn't want to incur his wrath, even if it seemed a lot less frightening now than it had before.

"Look, it seems like you and I are linked, so I'm guessing you were born in my time of dominion," Belial said, still smiling. "And I've been through this whole deal several hundred times before, so let me tell you, I know you know the deal around here. I can also tell you're a bit of a goody two shoes, which is kind of a damper."

Riku shrugged and wondered what he meant by "the deal around here." He guessed it had something to do with the contents of the book, and thought back to what it had said in those final pages. He remembered that within his realm of influence, the demon he chose to harness would be reduced in power and control. He wondered if it was any kind of inconvenience to them, and also thought it seemed a little cruel, though they were demons.

"Honestly, you're not as big of a deal as you think," Belial continued, interrupting his reverie. "You're not taking advantage of us, you're not draining us, and you're not even taking up any of our time. Demon life is a lot more boring than you'd think, so if anything, you're doing us a favor by bringing us out to play sometimes. I'm sure you've realized by now that I'll be hanging out here in your psyche, dosing you up with abilities and all that when you feel like it. So there you have it. Is your curiosity sated?"

Riku realized that he'd somewhat forgotten that his thoughts were audible in the mind-space he was in and felt stupid. Belial was just responding to what he'd heard, of course.

Belial seemed to roll his eyes at Riku's silence. "Are you going to actually speak to me?"

"Oh, sorry," Riku said, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's a lot to take in for a first-timer, I guess."

He felt the strange urge to grin again, and didn't have the wherewithal to stave it off. He wondered what Belial's powers would do for him.

Belial smirked, stepping forward to touch Riku's face. "That's definitely the look of perversion I'd expect from one of mine," he chuckled, getting closer. "You feel that?"

Riku's lungs constricted. Then his whole body felt feverish, something coiling inside of him and settling in his gut.

"That's what happens when we're together," Belial whispered, hands gliding towards Riku's lower back. "Imagine what would happen if we got a little closer."

Riku heard a strange noise escape him, not sure what he was doing or when his hands had wound themselves so tight in Belial's hair.

They were about the same height, so when he drew back, they were eye-to-eye, both grinning like fools. Riku didn't know what this feeling was, but he was intoxicated.

"I wouldn't normally do this," Belial whispered, one hand pushing up Riku's shirt, "but usually demon masters aren't so pretty. And with my influence on you from birth, this should be more than a little interesting."

Riku felt himself getting hotter again. This was the most intense experience he'd ever had. He inherently knew that his affinity with Belial was heightening the situation. After all, stupid as it had seemed before, he was starting to get what Belial's dominion and its link to sex was. This was more than just skill, it was the fundamental need. There was more than just desire, more than just tension. He wanted to savor this feeling forever.

Belial met his lips in a searing kiss. Literally searing. Again, Riku knew it would have burnt his flesh away in the real world. But in his mind, it was overwhelmingly pleasurable, spurring him on to take it further. He pressed his tongue into the demon's mouth and heard him moan. And that seemed to snap him out of something. He wasn't sure what was happening, but the whole space was disappearing, and his eyes were focusing back in on the real world. Belial was still smiling as everything melted away, his gleaming teeth the last thing Riku saw of that dark place. And as he adjusted his gaze on Sora's face once more, he felt himself slip into a different darkness, his body going limp as he lost consciousness.


	7. When the Devil's Loose

**Warnings and Disclaimers:** Zodiac stuff. Little sprinkles of magic without any full-on commitment to the occult. A little bit of ghosty fun, augury, and completely useless and ridiculous "powers." Sex, drugs, and copious cursing. A great deal of bullshitting and lack of accuracy. Nonsense and self-indulgent drivel as per usual. I own none of the characters.

**Title: **When the Devil's Loose - A.A. Bondy

* * *

**When the Devil's Loose**

Riku, much to his chagrin, was getting far too used to waking up from blackouts. He hadn't expected this sort of thing to become commonplace until his late 20s when he'd most certainly become an alcoholic due to years of rejection by his one true love. But it seemed fate had other plans for him.

'There's no such thing as fate,' he thought.

Except that wasn't his voice. Not even his inner voice. That was someone else entirely.

He finally sat up from his position on the floor and shook as the realization set in. Belial was talking to him from inside of his head. And perhaps it was a bit delayed, but he was sort of freaking out about the implications of that. Of what he'd unleashed. He'd gone along so easily, as if in a daze. He'd acted impulsively, right into Sora's hand. He looked at the brunet — who was passed out at his side — and got a bad taste in his mouth. He wasn't sure where to place the feeling, but it was somewhere between guilt and anger.

He was also undeniably bitter. He had been swayed by Sora. Sora had known he wasn't in his right mind, and had taken advantage of that. Even if the things he'd said made sense, Riku knew he normally wouldn't have agreed to go along with everything that had happened if not for his proximity to Librum Dæmoniorum. Or maybe he just wanted something to blame Sora for because he'd broken his heart. He wasn't sure.

In any case, he had also kissed Belial, and he was feeling pretty bad about that. He felt like he'd betrayed his feelings for Sora. And even though they weren't reciprocated, he still felt like it was a breach of trust. So it was complicated.

'It's not that complicated, Riku,' Belial chimed in.

Riku shuddered and just sat for a moment, not sure how to respond. He didn't want to fall down the rabbit hole any further. At the same time, what was done was done. He couldn't very well turn back the hands of time and un-unseal Belial and his latent powers. Heck, he probably couldn't even shut the demon up if he wanted to.

'Technically you could.'

Riku paused and made his mind completely blank for a moment, waiting. Then he thought, 'How would I do that?'

He could feel Belial smirking. Or maybe it was just his tone. Either way, the demon simply said, 'Come in here and gag me.' He followed with a cackle, then a long bout of silence as Riku's mind raced all over the place.

'You know, I don't catch everything going on in your brain,' Belial said casually, his voice silky smooth in Riku's mind. 'I only hear the things you really focus on. The things you form into actual sentences in here. So I'm stuck with half the picture, more or less. But I do know that you're thinking about how I'd look with a ball gag in my mouth, and I also know you're terribly tempted by my offer.'

Riku heard the smirk in his voice again. He heard it and hated it, but he knew the demon was right. Upsetting as it was, he wanted to continue what they'd started the day before. It freaked him out for more than one reason. Topping that list of reasons was that he'd be straight up fucking a demon. That just seemed wrong. Or somehow problematic. He wasn't clear on the morality of it, honestly, but he knew it was not right in his gut. He also felt weird about doing that in his incorporeal form in a blank mind-space of his own creation. There were just too many weird variables.

'That's also called "fantasizing, Riku.'

He conceded that point. That's exactly what fantasizing was under normal circumstances. At the same time, no it was not, and Belial knew that. There was a difference, because his fantasy would also be real in a sense. Or something.

'It would be- I mean,' Riku fumbled for words. For thoughts. For words to put into thoughts. He fumbled. Then he sighed and tried to figure it out. 'It would still be realer than fantasizing so, I mean, technically you're not wrong but you're also not right. Because you and that space exist, whereas usually fantasies are just things I dream up.'

'But the people in your fantasies also exist.'

'Belial, are you just trying to argue with me? We both know that makes no sense. They're not real in the fantasy. That's the point.'

Belial laughed at him. He knew instinctually it was not just a good-natured chuckle; he was laughing at him. He frowned at that but got side-tracked by the stirring of his friends around him.

Not everyone was coming to, but he saw Cloud and Leon moving in his peripheral vision and zeroed in on them immediately. He recalled how lifeless they'd been the day before and knew there must be something to it. Something upsetting and terrible.

He moved to their position as they sat up and noted that Kairi was also stirring right next to them. He assumed she'd passed out while tending to them but wasn't sure since he'd gone out before her.

He helped her to sit up with them and waited a moment before starting in with the questioning.

"What happened?" he said, unable to take the silence any longer. He looked each of them in the eyes and was stunned. They all looked as though they'd aged a hundred years. Not that their outer appearances had changed at all, but the look in their eyes was unsettling to say the least. Perhaps there was something in his expression that was different to them as well, because they stared back at him with equal concern.

"Are you okay, Riku?" Kairi murmured, touching his arm. Her eyes went wide and she recoiled, blinking and shaking her head. "Never mind."

"What happened?" Riku said again, folding his arms over his chest. "We were all so worried about you guys."

Cloud and Leon looked at each other, then back at Riku. "It was too much," Cloud said simply.

"He means the powers- Rather, what the powers conferred. It was too much. For both of us."

Riku waited for an explanation, but it seemed none was forthcoming. Not without some prodding, at least.

"Explain," he sighed, settling into a more relaxed position.

"Yes, please explain to all of us," Sora chimed in, appearing at Riku's side. Riku noted that everyone else was also wide awake then, all sitting and waiting to hear what had happened to Cloud and Leon. He looked over at Sora and realized Kairi was staring intently at the two of them from the other side. He tried to push that out of his mind and give Sora a smile, but it came out pretty watery. He wasn't feeling himself. Before anything else could happen, he turned his attention back to Leon and Cloud, both of whom seemed to be contemplating something.

They finally turned and started addressing the rest of the group.

"We've seen possibilities," Cloud said, gripping Leon's hand. "I've seen this narrative."

"And I've seen our many iterations," Leon added, calm as usual. "I've seen us fighting a great conflict together. Most of us on the same side." He glanced at Saix and Xemnas. Then eyed Axel and Roxas. He opened his mouth as if to say something but made a pained face and gripped his head instead, nearly falling prone again. Cloud managed to hold him up but looked concerned.

"I understand," the blond said.

No one else did. Well, not everything, anyways. Kairi seemed to get it more than everyone else, and looked almost as pained as Leon. She sat wobbling next to Riku, so he steadied her by gripping her shoulders, looking down at her face when she turned to him.

"What is it?" he said.

"I can feel it," she muttered. "He's overwhelmed again. He's having a hard time processing the other universes he's witnessed. He's continuing to witness them now, in fact, and the information is too much."

Riku shivered, glancing at his two friends in concern. "This is getting way out of hand."

"Yes, but what can we do?" Kairi said, gripping one of his hands. "Fighting it would be pointless and you know it."

She was right. Riku couldn't stop anything that was coming, or that had come already. Everything was just going to unfold whether he liked it or not. He'd never felt so impotent in his life.

He was reminded that he'd been through this cycle of feelings before. The reminder came from Belial, who had some not-so-kind words for Riku's "whiny wingeing."

He decided to ignore the demon as he harped on, realizing that he could tune him out pretty well when he needed to. That was a relief because he seemed to just keep talking, even as Cloud spoke up again.

"Leon's power is connected to mine to a degree," he said, still gripping his boyfriend tight. "We entered the shop at the same time, too. I realize I didn't tell all of you that."

Riku wondered at that, confused about how their powers worked in tandem and why they'd been able to enter together. He figured it must have something to do with their bond as a couple or some other weird bullshit. Maybe their items were ancient artifacts designed to beckon to the same pair of souls over and over. And maybe those souls would always come together no matter how many times they came into existence. Who knew. Riku certainly didn't. He thought his ideas were stupid at the same time as Belial plainly said they were. Anyways, he didn't really care that much in the end, it just made him insanely jealous of what they had.

"Anyways," Cloud continued, snapping Riku out of his reverie. "I don't exactly see what Leon's seeing, but I feel like I can explain it so I'll try my best here." He cleared his throat and closed his eyes for a bit, leaving everyone in suspense. "Wait. I can explain this, as well." He went silent again, his face contorting somewhat as he continued. "I- I really don't know how I'm- I don't know what's going on but I can tell you that I know everything that has happened since summer break began, but only from Riku's perspective."

Murmurs began spreading through the group at that, everyone wondering what the hell that meant.

"This story is about him," Cloud said, cutting through the chatter. "That's why I know this. I also know that Leon is thinking about Axel and Roxas. Who they are- it's so fucking confusing!"

Cloud and Leon both grunted, pain etching deeper lines in their faces. "They're not people in this other universe. And Roxas is- I guess he's a part of Sora. I'm not getting everything, I can't!"

He screamed and opened his eyes revealing that they'd gone completely white. He shoved Leon away from him and reached for him at the same time, panic flashing on his face. Leon toppled and began hyperventilating, bringing the strange stasis that had fallen on the group to an end. Several people jumped up then, scrambling to help. Someone ran from the room to look for a bag and everyone else began yelling suggestions, rushing towards Leon. Someone had gotten on the phone to call 911, but Cloud was stopping them and quietly explaining why it would be useless. He knew there was nothing that could be done, medically speaking, to fix the strain this was putting on them both.

This didn't stop most of the people in the room from flipping out, but it calmed the person by the phone (who Riku finally noted to be Demyx). Roxas came rushing back in with a brown paper bag and pushed it against Leon's face, telling him to breathe slowly into it. Riku was trying to spread his concern evenly for his friends, but he had his hands full with Kairi. She was going paler by the minute, and he knew it had to do with what she was picking up from Leon. He realized that if she wasn't able to control the power well enough, she was going to be in trouble.

"Everything in there is heavy with emotional strain," she said quietly, head hitting Riku's collarbone. "I can't stop it. I can see it but I can't see it. I can't grasp it but it's there and I can't control it. I'm being inundated."

Riku tried to think of a solution. Tried, but couldn't. He felt more desperate than ever, and Belial was droning on in the background.

"Shut up!" he yelled, speaking aloud unintentionally.

Everyone stared at him, some in shock, others in seeming boredom. Perhaps with everything becoming so weird, they were becoming numb to outbursts like this.

"Sorry," he said immediately. "Um. I just think we shouldn't be running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Look, Leon's breathing normally now."

And he was. The paper bag seemed to have worked, and it also seemed that he was able to relax more. Maybe he had his power under control for the moment. Riku wasn't sure, but he could tell Kairi was improving some with him. That was heartening.

He continued to hold her anyways, still concerned about how pale and cold she was.

'There are ways to help all of your friends,' Belial said, suddenly cutting through everything else. 'Unlock what's inside of them too. You know how. Just point and click. You've already got a mastery over your powers they can't possibly achieve without your help.'

Riku ground his teeth and ignored the voice, trying not to think about the possibilities. At the same time, Cloud's head whipped in his direction, his gaze almost palpable as he stared Riku down.

"The demon is speaking to you," he said. There was no question in his voice. Cloud understood. Riku realized what he'd meant about seeing what was happening in "this story."

"It's telling you to unlock things inside of us all."

Everyone was looking at the two of them now, back and forth between Cloud and Riku. Riku didn't deny anything, choosing to shrug instead.

"What of it?" he said, making sure Kairi was okay as he spoke. "I'm not going to."

"Why not?" Sora said. Riku hadn't expected that. The brunet had been oddly quiet through everything, simply sitting at his side. He had sort of been tuning him out, he realized. He knew why. Subconsciously, he was still angry at Sora. Unreasonably, childishly so. He hated himself for it, but he was ignoring him anyways. "Why not?" Sora said again, shaking his free arm. "This is the natural progression."

"I agree," Roxas said, moving to sit closer to Sora. "If you have demon powers, why won't you let us in on it?"

"I don't even know what that means," Riku said bitterly. He knew he was scowling. He knew he looked menacing and serious. He also knew it was probably more troubling than usual judging by how Kairi had reacted to his face earlier. "I don't know what my powers are. I don't know what your powers will be. I don't know the consequences, and I certainly don't want to find out by fucking around like a bumbling idiot. Sorry if I'm diverging from the rest of the group there."

Sora leaned forward so quickly it was shocking, eyes narrowed. And before Riku knew what was happening, Sora slapped him.

He didn't know what to do. Nothing like that had ever happened before, not even in his wildest dreams. Sora would never hit anyone.

"You deserved that," Kairi said, wincing at his side, then laughing. She sat up some and spoke in his defense anyways. "Before you guys get mad at Riku, let me remind you how overwhelming this has been for all of us," she said, patting him on the leg. "He is no exception even though he's acting tough. Admittedly, he seems to be having an easier time than most of us for some reason, but he's still suffering."

Most of the people in the group seemed to have already understood that and moved on, not even needing Kairi's interference. But Sora was still angry. Riku could feel it even without empathic abilities.

He looked at the brunet and realized he wasn't feeling any regret over what he'd said. At least, not any regret that was directed at Sora. He regretted calling his other friends stupid, because on the whole, they really weren't. He knew he'd just been trying to act superior because he was frustrated by their questions, as was his wont. He could be bratty like that. But with Sora, he knew he'd made him angry mostly because he'd been the one to start everything, and the one to repeatedly advocate for the continuation of their experiments with items of power. He knew Sora felt like Riku had been calling him stupid directly, and he knew that stung. And he didn't care. He was letting his bitterness take over.

'Bitter and pent up are a great combination,' Belial murmured. 'Why don't you come see me.'

Riku ignored him for a moment, but then thought that maybe later he really would see what would happen. His interest was more than just a little piqued, and the pouty, angry look on Sora's face was spurring him on. It was attractive, but it also made Riku feel extremely irritated. So maybe he could just take it out on Belial. Who would notice or care?

Cloud did. Riku was certain of that, suddenly, and felt ashamed. At the same time, he wasn't going to let it stop him if he really felt like it.

Cloud wasn't looking at him anymore anyways. His attention was all for Leon.

He gave Kairi a quick look at noted she was regaining her color. He also realized that she'd picked up on some things. He wasn't sure if it was from him or from Sora, but she was glancing back and forth between them. Inexplicably, she laughed. Without saying anything, she stood up and walked out of the room, leaving the house entirely. Riku just sat wondering what was going on. He was more confused than ever.

Everyone else started saying their goodbyes after Kairi left, stating that they needed to go check on their families and get some decent rest on a bed. Riku saw them out and said he was sorry for his outburst, though almost everyone just laughed and waved it away. He was expecting Sora to show up at the front door along with the rest of the procession, but he noticed as the last person left that the brunet had not gone by at all.

'He must still be up in my room,' he thought, having mixed feelings about that. He shook his head, decided he'd done enough thinking to fill a whole week that morning, and went upstairs to face Sora.

The brunet was, as expected, still in his room. In his bed, in fact, which was weird. He didn't really want to question it, but he also felt that he should.

"Why are you doing this?" he said, pointedly standing at the end of the bed.

Sora looked up at him and gave him the same pout. "I'm not doing anything."

"Yes you are." Riku sighed and sat down, facing away from Sora.

"I'm trying to figure out why you suddenly hate me," Sora said, sneaking up behind him after some time. "I want to know if we can ever be together again."

Riku laughed. "You know, I would love to go back to how we were. Even if it hurt all the time, at least we were happy together."

"Then don't push me away." Sora wrapped his arms around Riku's stomach, resting his head against his shoulder. "Just be with me."

Riku shook his head in disbelief, overwhelmed by the events of the day. "I already told you why I can't."

"Fuck me again," Sora said, pressing closer. "I can't stand this distance."

"Stop acting like you love me!" Riku yelled, turning around and pushing Sora down by the shoulders. "There's going to be a distance no matter what when you can't return my feelings yet want to use them for your gratification."

He thought Sora might slap him again, but he ended up kissing the brunet before that could happen, gripping his face hard and straddling his waist.

He pushed a hand down Sora's pants and started biting down his neck, his brain too fried to give any real reason not to do it. Sora moaned and pushed up into his touch anyways. This was going to happen.

As much as Riku normally thought things over, he was doing a hell of a job ignoring his reservations now. Belial was silent for the most part, but he did say one thing before leaving them alone. 'He was jealous, you know. I don't know how you didn't see it. He was jealous of that girl you were holding.'

Riku pulled back from Sora's neck and looked down at him, all flushed and disheveled. He looked like he was on the verge of tears, but he also looked like he really didn't want Riku to stop. He pulled Riku back to him almost angrily, the pout returning to his face. "Stop thinking about anything else."

Riku shuddered. He suddenly felt like there was hope for him yet. Belial was right. He'd been jealous of Kairi. It all made sense now: the slap that was so out of character, Kairi's laugh before she left, Sora's decision to stay after and ask to be together. Maybe it was all a sign that Sora was feeling more than he realized. Riku tried not to read too much into it, but his mood was vastly improved. To the point that he was smiling as he continued to kiss Sora. He became a lot gentler as he considered what had happened.

Sora seemed to react strongly to that, his breathing becoming even more erratic. Riku heard it hitch hard when he slowly mouthed his nipple and pressed himself against the brunet hard, tempted to rip his clothes away violently and do it like they had before. But the part of him that wanted to be tender — that wanted to love Sora rather than just fuck him — won out this time, and he nuzzled sweetly against his chest instead. He stroked between Sora's legs more, peeling away his pants when the brunet nodded at his questioning gaze.

He slid his hands over Sora's thighs and savored his reactions, mouthing him all over before pressing his lips where the brunet wanted it most. He felt Sora's hands in his hair and sighed, taking all of him into his mouth. A soft whimper caught him off guard, but when he looked up, his friend was staring back with eyes full of want.

"Riku," he panted softly, cupping his cheek.

Riku shuddered, realizing he hadn't thought to find something approximating lube before they'd gotten this far. He stood and kissed Sora's fingers before removing his shirt and fumbling around for something they could use in his nightstand.

Sora, to his surprise, appeared directly behind him in the middle of this process, wrapping his arms around Riku again. He unzipped his pants and started stroking him, breathing hard against his spine.

"Hurry," Sora murmured, hands growing bolder.

Riku found what he was looking for and pushed Sora back onto his bed, still gentle, but more insistent now. He lifted the brunet's leg and pressed his slick fingers inside, watching in torturous silence as he writhed. He kissed him as he continued moving his fingers inside, gasping as Sora's cock twitched against his stomach and dribbled pre-cum on them both. He felt himself twitching in response and couldn't help but press together and stroke simultaneously, still sucking on Sora's tongue as he jerked against him.

"You can put it in," Sora said, voice barely a whisper. "I want you."

Riku moaned and did just that, sucking hard on Sora's pulse point. 'I love you,' he thought, keeping it to himself. 'I love you. I love you. I love you so fucking much.'

Sora tightened around him and he thrust in deeper, taking it slow. He stared down at the brunet as he moved, realizing he hadn't appreciated it enough the first time, hadn't taken time to stop and smell the roses. He wouldn't miss a thing this time, especially if it was to be the last time.

He felt his throat and chest tighten up in sync and bit back tears, knowing that he couldn't keep doing this, and that his love was only getting deeper and darker. "I love you," he finally whispered, unable to keep it in any longer. "I hate it, but I love you." He let his head drop to Sora's shoulder and felt the tears seeping from under his eyelids, still moving even as he cried.

He flinched when Sora's arms came up around him, nearly pushing them down roughly and pounding into him as he'd done before. Instead, he took what comfort he could from his friend, calming down and focusing on enjoying what time they had left in this kind of relationship while it was still possible.

When their lips met later as Sora came, they were wetter than he'd expected, and he saw that the brunet had cried with him. And in spite of himself, he felt happy about that.


End file.
